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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY 



A CONTRIBUTION TO THE 



CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATION OF 
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES 



BY 



THE EDITORS OF "THE ANDOVER REVIEW" 



PROFESSORS IN ANDOVER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 



\\rv*\ 



. . . Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full grown man, 
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. 
— Eph. iv. 13. 



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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
(Cfce Htoersibe $res& Camfcritige 






Copyright, 1886, 
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
Electrotyped and Printed by IL 0. Houghton & Co, 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The papers collected in this volume appeared first as 
editorial contributions to " The Andover Review," a re- 
ligious and theological monthly conducted by Egbert 
C. Smyth, William J. Tucker, J. W. Churchill, 
George Harris, and Edward Y. Hixcks, Professors in 
Andover Theological Seminary. They are republished 
substantially as first issued, with the exception of the 
first and seventh articles, portions of which only had 
previously appeared. Some account of the purpose and 
method of the series is given in the introductory article. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I. Introduction 1 

II. The Incarnation 17 

III. The Atonement . . . . . . .41 

IV. ESCHATOLOGT 67 

V. The Work of the Holt Spirit . . .112 

VI. The Christian 131 

VII. Christianity and Missions . . . .153 

VIII. The Scriptures 191 

IX. Conclusion. — Christianity Absolute and 

Universal 236 



PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The phrase "New Theology" is applied largely 
and loosely to a great variety of opinions advocated 
quite independently by numerous writers in many 
countries. In its widest inclusion it embraces 
tendencies which are more or less contradictory to 
Apostolic Christianity and to the general tradition 
and faith of the Church. In its more correct and 
reasonable use it covers many movements of thought 
which are quite distinct, one from the other, and 
are not likely immediately to coalesce or harmonize. 
Even where there is greater affinity of conception 
there is diversity in the field which is cultivated. 
One class of writers busies itself chiefly with the 
dogmatic problems necessitated by the growth of 
the evolutionary Philosophy. Another is occupied 
with questions of historical Criticism. Another is 
absorbed in the development of the new science of 
Biblical Theology. Another seeks from a yet more 
interior and central position to state the leading 
doctrines of our religion in the light and under the 



2 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

inspiration of the revelation of God which is given 
in Christ. Perhaps the stamp which marks most 
distinctly and comprehensively this new Divinity is 
reality ; and the phrase " real Theology " is in this 
and other respects a better designation than " new 
Theology." It is real because it deals with be- 
ings more than with abstractions, with actual pro- 
cesses and their rational contents more than with 
a priori assumptions, with laws of life and organic 
forces more than with mechanical combinations, 
with wholes or parts in their relations to wholes, 
with things more than with words, and with per- 
sons more than with things. Wherever an inves- 
tigator in the wide domain of knowledge is seeking 
for and touching reality he is contributing to this 
Theology ; and there is consequently a strong bond 
of sympathy between all such workers, even though 
the limitation of their labor and the narrowness of 
human vision may hold them apart. 

The following essays are offered as such a con- 
tribution. Their special themes and the mode of 
treatment have been determined by current discus- 
sions. They make no attempt to formulate the " New 
Theology," or to indicate its scope. Such an en- 
deavor might be too ambitious ; it would doubtless 
be premature. Along with a general unity of spirit 
and aim on the part of the advocates of the " New 
Theology" there exists, as we have intimated, a no- 
ticeable variety of special opinions and judgments. 
Not all of these can be harmonized. Not all will 
be able to vindicate their character as purely Chris- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

tian. Some are professedly advanced as provis- 
ional, hypothetic, tentative. Problems are above 
the horizon which are not yet clearly within the 
field of vision. Even their provisional and rela- 
tive solution is at present impracticable. Too early 
an attempt to define and systematize is likely to 
cramp and repress inquiry, and to promote a dog- 
matic self-satisfaction which is a deadly foe to 
progress. The aim, accordingly, of the writers of 
these papers has been to keep clearly within the 
range of what is immediately necessary and practi- 
cal. For the most part, a single line of inquiry has 
been followed, under the guidance of a central and 
vital principle of Christianity, namely, the reality 
of Christ's personal relation to the human race as 
a whole and to every member of it, — the principle 
of the universality of Christianity. 

This principle has been rapidly gaining of late 
in its power over men's thoughts and lives. It is 
involved in the church doctrine of the constitution 
of Christ's person. It is a necessary implication of 
our fathers' faith in the extent and intent of the 
Atonement. It is an indisputable teaching of sa- 
cred Scripture. It lies at the heart of all that is 
most heroic and self-sacrificing in the Christian life 
of our century. We have sought to apply this prin- 
ciple to the solution of questions which are now 
more than ever before engaging the attention of se- 
rious and devout minds. We have endeavored to 
follow its guidance faithfully and loyally, and whith- 
ersoever it might lead. We have trusted it wholly 



4 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

and practically. By the publication of this volume 
we submit our work to the judgment of a wider 
public. If we have anywhere overestimated or un- 
derestimated the validity and value of our guiding 
principle, we hope that this will be pointed out. Or 
if we have lost sight of any qualifying or limiting 
truth, we desire that this may be shown. On the 
other hand, if we have been true to a great and car- 
dinal doctrine of our holy religion, and have devel- 
oped its necessary implications and consequences, 
we ask that any further discussion of these conclu- 
sions should recognize their connection icith the prin- 
ciple from which they are derived , and, their legiti- 
macy, unless this principle is itself to he abandoned. 
A subordinate aim of the following essays is to 
point out, as the occasion arises, certain theological 
improvements which we regard as already assured. 
Leaving general phrases which may easily be made 
to hold either too much or too little, we would turn 
attention to a few fundamental doctrines, and show 
in what respect there actually is improvement in 
their apprehension and use. The task is not an 
easy one. But no important work is, and it seems 
to us to be timely and to promise good. There has 
been a great change in the public mind, especially 
that to which we are most immediately related, 
even within a brief period. The number of per- 
sons who desire information as to what the " New. 
Theology" can offer is increased. Prejudices have 
been overcome. Not a few friends of progress, if 
we are not mistaken, who once were distrustful of 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

this Theology, have already discovered that it has 
something in it desirable and helpful for them ; 
and that even if some of its positions and infer- 
ences are insecure, yet, taken as a whole, it is a real 
and salutary advance in Christian thought. Such 
persons will welcome our endeavor, and will deal 
kindly with its imperfections. We cannot but hope 
that others, at present more critical in their atti- 
tude, possibly pronounced in their opposition, may 
see reason for a less unfavorable judgment ; may 
even discover that the new movement really signi- 
fies a better apprehension of the truth and a larger 
use of the power of the gospel which they and we 
alike have received in faith and as a sacred trust. 
So far, therefore, as the new thought in theology 
commends itself to us as a real and definite gain, 
and so far as it naturally comes under review in 
prosecuting the special purpose of this volume, we 
shall endeavor to set it forth, and to indicate in 
what respects it is differentiated from the old. 

We have retained the general title — "Progres- 
sive Orthodoxy " — under which these papers first 
appeared. The word " orthodoxy " was employed 
as a concise and convenient expression of our con- 
viction that theological progress does not involve 
or require any break with the faith of the church 
catholic, any recasting of the primitive ecumenical 
creeds, any departure from the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the Reformation. We have no special 
regard for the epithet orthodox. It has been suf- 
ficiently abused to give ground for offense. It 



6 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

suggests to some minds narrowness, arrogance, and 
intolerance. We much prefer to be recognized as 
disciples of Him who is the Truth than to be cred- 
ited with conformity to standards of belief of hu- 
man construction. But we are not insensible to 
the reality and worth of character in the sphere of 
thought. Human progress would be impossible if 
everything in belief were changeable. No man 
could hope for moral perfection if in the power of 
choice itself there were not the possibility of a per- 
manent preference, or if liberty were not exercised 
in a system of things which makes for stability. 
The word orthodox designates theological character, 
recognizes constant as well as variable elements in 
religious belief, discriminates the position and work 
of those who are entitled to appropriate it from the 
revolutionary aim of men who deny the historical 
basis of Christianity, or resolve its doctrines into 
what are called the eternal truths of the spirit, or 
substitute for the divine Spirit the human reason, 
and are unable to save themselves from the method 
and consequences of rationalism. The present is 
rooted in the past. Christianity has a permanent 
basis in historical facts, in a faith once for all de- 
livered to the saints, in a Canon of sacred Scrip* 
ture. There is a collective and continuous Chris- 
tian consciousness. Our recognition of this relation 
of the new to the old is expressed in our motto, 
" Progressive Orthodoxy.'' To be more definite, 
it emphasizes our belief that the positions to which 
we have assented, the conclusions we have adopted, 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

are in the line of that development of Christian 
doctrine which has been advancing in the church 
from the beginning. First of all, the church set- 
tled its rule of faith, confessing the fundamental 
historic facts of the gospel, discriminating its au- 
thoritative Scriptures, affirming against Ebionism 
and Gnosticism the distinctness, universality, and 
absoluteness of Christianity. Impelled by the in- 
ward necessities of its own life, as well as con- 
strained by outward oppositions, it proceeded to 
affirm yet more clearly and fully its central Prin- 
ciple. Everything in Christianity centres in Christ. 
For more than a century after the church became 
fully conscious of the distinctness of its mission 
and of its catholicity, its thought was chiefly turned 
to the doctrine of the second Person named in its 
baptismal formula and Apostles' Creed. Then fol- 
lowed a similar, though less protracted, concentra- 
tion of interest upon the doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit; then a like, though still more restricted, 
absorption in the question of the relation of divine 
grace to human depravity. In this way results 
were reached which have stood the test of time, 
and are a part of the belief to-day of the universal 
church. It is through the same process of inquiry, 
reflection, comparison of opinions, growth of belief 
under the demands of successive periods in human 
history, disclosures of Providence, and promptings 
of the Holy Spirit, that more and more fully the 
Christian revelation has been translated into creed 
and life. Progress in theology is a progress in 



8 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

method, and then a progress in result. It may bo 
intensive when not extensive, qualitative when not 
quantitative. It is at times a matter of accent and 
emphasis more than of additional information and 
improved statement, of interpretation rather than 
of new data, of combination and proportion as well 
as of increased knowledge, of new order and not 
simply of new materials. There is no doctrine of 
the Bible, however rudimentary and essential, which 
is not susceptible of illumination or higher system- 
ization in the development of a scientific faith; 
and there may be an endless advance in the larger 
inclusion and better correlation of known spiritual 
facts and truths, for these are intrinsically, not 
simple units, or measurable quantities, or tangible 
things, but revelations of the highest and grandest 
personal qualities and actions, and of the vastest 
relations and destinies. The church has always 
proclaimed that " God is love," but there can be no 
question that in thought and life this truth has a 
far more commanding influence to-day than ever 
before. Christian faith has always accepted the 
fact of the Incarnation, but it cannot be doubted 
that enlarged conceptions of the contents of this 
fact have been gained through centuries of earnest 
discussion and even bitter controversy, or that it is 
now r more amply interpreted than was possible to 
earlier thought. Nor do we exhaust the meaning 
of progress by conceiving of it as merely formal, 
or intensive, or qualitative. There is material en- 
largement. The church of to-day has a fuller 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

knowledge of the purpose of God respecting the 
extension of Christianity, a better conception of 
the dispensation of the Spirit and of the relation 
of Christianity to human history, than it was possi- 
ble to communicate to the early church. The ful- 
fillments of prophecy yield an ampler knowledge 
than could be derived immediately from the origi- 
nal record. Events are God's messengers ; provi- 
dences are his interpreters ; the Christian centuries 
are the promised times of the Spirit, and unfold di- 
vine purposes. Something new is revealed in the 
growth of the Christian church, as indeed in all 
development. To deny such progressive unfolding 
of the Christian verities is to ignore or to falsify 
history. It has been actually going on from the 
beginning. It is rooted in the necessary laws and 
established conditions of human thought. It is a 
witness to the living relation which the Head of 
the church sustains to it. It is the product of the 
presence and energy within the church of the prom- 
ised Spirit of truth. To doubt that a progress 
thus provided for, pledged, and realized is jDossible 
also in our own time is a symptom of unbelief, not 
the sign of a Christian's faith. 

The injunction, however, doubtless still holds 
good : " Prove all things." There may be novelty 
of doctrine without progress, as w T ell as progress 
without entire novelty. The question is always le- 
gitimate and necessary whether any alleged im- 
provement is a real advance. So far as in the 
following essays we have recognized progress it has 



10 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

been under the full and constant acceptance of the 
supreme authority of sacred Scripture. Whatever 
new light may break forth, it will come from this 
source, as the church is led by the Providence and 
Spirit of God to a better understanding of its teach- 
ings. We have no reason to anticipate that there 
will be opened to theology any absolutely new doc- 
trine, or to practical piety any other way of salva- 
tion than that revealed in the beginning. If, in 
the ensuing pages, opinions are expressed which 
can be shown not to harmonize with the voice of 
Scripture, or with the religious life that the Word 
of God instrumentally produces and sustains, they 
are thereby judged and condemned. We advocate 
them because we believe them to be Biblical and 
Christian. We use both of these adjectives because 
they seem to be necessary. It appears sometimes 
to be overlooked that an opinion may be Christian 
which cannot be grounded in, or fortified by, an ar- 
ray of proof-texts. The Bible, it should be remem- 
bered, is not a collection of texts designed to estab- 
lish propositions in systematic theology. It is 
written after another method, for a different pur- 
pose. It presents persons, events, principles, warn- 
ings and promises, precepts, and examples. "Every 
Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for 
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
which is in righteousness ; that the man of God 
may be complete, furnished completely unto every 
good work." The systemization of Christian doc- 
trine proceeds under the laws of thought. Infer- 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

ences must be regulated by the nature and scope 
of the premises. A great historical fact, a union 
of the ideal and the real, like the Incarnation, ra- 
diates light upon all the problems of human his- 
tory and destiny. Reason, illumined by it, may 
trust it and use it, and not be misled, even though 
it cannot quote an explicit utterance of an Apostle 
for all that it discerns. Or, if this be thought to 
be too bold an assumption, this much must be ad- 
mitted: Christianity is revealed as the universal 
and final religion for mankind. Whatever is le- 
gitimately and necessarily involved in this premise 
has the authority of Scripture which attests this 
religion, even though it be not a matter of direct 
and explicit Biblical assertion. The Scriptures 
teach, as we have just said, the principle of the 
universality of Christianity, but the humblest dis- 
ciple of Jesus can to-day draw inferences as to the 
meaning of this doctrine, as to its verification in 
the progress and prospects of Christian missions, 
that exceed anything explicitly declared in the 
Apostolic preaching or writings. On a variety of 
themes conclusions are drawn and generally ac- 
cepted in the Christian church from the revealed 
character of God, from the character and spirit of 
Jesus's teaching, from the character of his religion, 
which are wider or more specific than can be proved 
by any particular inspired utterance. Such in- 
ferences are current and accredited respecting the 
salvation of infants, the obligation of the Lord's 
day, the doctrine of the Trinity, the extension and 



12 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

triumph of the Christian church, the nature of the 
Atonement. The light of the gospel as a revela- 
tion of God, the light of Christianity concentrated 
in the Person and work of Christ, not only shines 
back upon ancient Scripture, giving it new mean- 
ing, not only irradiates Apostolic preaching and 
prophecy, but also streams along the track of the 
Christian centuries, interpreting their significance, 
and onward into the unseen universe, whose heaven 
is the presence of Christ and all whose worlds are 
under his sway. Single proof-texts or collected 
proof-texts are not a measure of Christianity, nor 
of our knowledge of Christianity. The greatness 
of Christ is reflected in history, as well as in Apos- 
tolic teaching; in the fulfillments of prophecy, as 
well as in the comparatively indistinct letter of the 
original prediction ; in the advance of the church 
in an appropriation of the spirit of his teaching ; 
in its growing power to think after Him his 
thoughts and to be inspired by his love; in the 
long succession of centuries which require new in- 
terpretations of the meaning of his second coming ; 
in the evolution of the economy of the Holy Spirit 
whom He sends, and whose work is conditioned by 
his Person, sacrifice, and reign. All these things 
put the church now in a relation to his religion 
which never before has been paralleled. The facts 
revealed in the Scriptures speak with new tongues. 
We do not honor Scripture less, but more, when we 
trust these facts, and God's interpretations of them 
in reason and history. They are life ; the human 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

mind feels their vivifying power in the world of 
thought and theology, and cannot be held back 
from larger conceptions of God and his kingdom 
and human destiny, because everything it cherishes 
in hope and expectation was not definitely uttered 
by an Apostle in writing a practical letter to the 
Romans, or the Corinthians, or the Diaspora. The- 
ology is the science of God. God is revealed in 
Christ. The possibility, the unity, the verification, 
of a science of divinity are given in Him. The 
ultimate test of progress, therefore, is Christolog- 
ical. The point always to be determined with ref- 
erence to any alleged improvement is whether it 
promotes the knowledge of the central principle of 
Christianity in itself or in its operations. 

We suppose that it is a sense of the truth of this 
criterion which underlies the frequent representa- 
tion made by the opponents of the "New Theology" 
that their own systems are Christocentric. It is 
implied that if they were not so the claim of this 
Theology to be a real advance would be justified. 
We gladly recognize the full measure of truth which 
resides in such claims. The tendency of Christian 
thought has for long been in the direction of such 
a method of theological construction. One of the 
most marked characteristics of modern theology, as 
compared with either the mediaeval or ancient, is 
the development given to the doctrine of the Atone- 
ment. This movement culminated in the "New Eng- 
land Theology." The doctrine of divine sovereignty 
had still a formal ascendency, but this sovereignty 



14 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

was thought of as sovereign grace, and as adminis- 
tered on the basis of a universal atonement. This is 
an important approach to a Christocentric system. 
The work of Christ is exalted to a position of dig- 
nity and power never before so adequately and sci- 
entifically represented. Yet this system with all 
its excellences is still far from being Christocentric. 
Its doctrine of God and of his purposes is not yet 
thoroughly christianized, but contains unassimilated 
deistic and pagan elements. Its theory of the 
Atonement subordinates the Person of Christ to his 
work. Its anthropology is individualistic, and is 
not ruled by the thought of divine sonship. Its 
eschatology, with special merits, is a receptacle of 
many imperfections and misconceptions which have 
crept into previous parts of the system. The whole 
of it, as Dr. Henry B. Smith has said, needs to be 
Christologized. A truly Christocentric system will 
be won when, and not until, the Person of Christ 
rather than his work is made central in redemp- 
tion, and is seen at the same time to be central also 
in creation, revelation, and the universal kingdom 
of God. For such a theology is not a mere pietis- 
tic eulogy of the historic Christ, nor even a pro- 
found apprehension of some one or more of his 
offices or acts alone, but a systemization of religious 
doctrine through the knowledge of God, and es- 
pecially the knowledge of God's ethical nature, 
communicated by Him who is the beginning and 
end of all divine revelations. And when once this 
fundamental conception of the nature and method 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

of theology is really gained it will be discerned with 
equal clearness and necessity that the true and 
ultimate test of all theological progress is its chris- 
tianization of its materials, from whatsoever source 
they may be derived. 

With reference to several of the topics consid- 
ered by us, it should be borne in mind that as dis- 
tinct, specific, and absorbing questions of theologi- 
cal discussion they belong to the modern era ; one 
of them is but just beginning to attract the attention 
it deserves. Each and all, indeed, have from early 
times received more or less notice. Certain ele- 
ments or factors of each have been made prominent. 
But none have been discussed as now, or within a 
comparatively brief period. The question, What is 
the Bible ? could not earlier be investigated as in 
recent days, for lack, apart from other reasons, of 
the requisite critical apparatus. The doctrine of 
the Atonement even in so late a Confession as the 
Westminster — the last of the great historic creeds 
— is merged in the larger doctrine of Redemption. 
Many questions in eschatology, now rife, have 
never until recently received thorough considera- 
tion. The special inquiry as to the relation of ^ 
Christ's Person, sacrifice, final judgment, to those 
who never hear the gospel in this life is becoming 
more and more urgent and important, because it is ^ 
the next and necessary one now that the Atonement 
has become a distinct and specific doctrine, and the 
interpretation has won general approval that it has 
an absolutely universal relation and intent. We 



16 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

claim in that portion of our work which will natu- 
\ rally attract the most criticism to be pursuing the 
path opened by our predecessors in vindicating the 
now accepted truth that Christ's sacrifice on Calvary 
was for every man. It is a reasonable request that 
this connection and relation of what we have to say 
on eschatology should be kept in view, and that the 
conclusions reached should be tested by their har- 
mony with the revelation given in and through the 
Incarnation. The ultimate question between con- 
flicting opinions must be, Which most perfectly ap- 
propriates the grace and truth revealed in Christ ? 
We do not decline the test of orthodoxy, but it is 
obvious that, with reference to inquiries which could 
not arise at an earlier stage of Christian knowl- 
edge or doctrinal development, and which have 
never been adjudicated upon ecclesiastically be- 
cause never fully opened for discussion, the question 
of orthodoxy happily merges in the more profitable 
question of truth. 

We add a single remark upon the general phil- 
osophical conception of God and his relation to the 
universe which underlies these essays. It is a 
modification of a prevailing Latin conception of 
the divine transcendence by a clearer and fuller 
appreciation (in accordance with the highest thought 
of the Greek fathers) of the divine immanence. 
Such a doctrine of God, we believe, is more and 
more approving itself in the best philosophy of our 
time, and the fact of the Incarnation commends it 
to the acceptance of the Christian theologian. 



II. 

THE INCARNATION. 

The new or more developed thought respecting 
the Incarnation which we would now consider re- 
lates to the uniqueness of Jesus's humanity, the 
unity of his Person, and its significance. 

I. The uniqueness of Jesus's humanity. The 
church has from the beginning maintained the re- 
ality of this humanity. The opposition which it 
has encountered has fastened successively upon its 
various elements. First it was denied that Jesus's 
body was real ; then that He possessed a soul ; 
then that his spirit or higher reason was homoge- 
neous with ours ; then that He had a human will. 
Each negation was at once confronted with an ex- 
plicit affirmation, so that no article of our faith has 
been more analytically and fully confessed. In 
modern times the cultivation of history and im- 
proved methods of Biblical interpretation have 
greatly increased the degree of attention given to 
this subject. The "New Theology" appropriates 
the fruits of these investigations. It seeks in every 
way to attain to a just historic appreciation of the 
actual life in Palestine of the Man of Nazareth, and 
to give a truthful representation of his personal 
2 



18 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

relations to his times and to the course of history. 
For this purpose it enters fearlessly and fully into 
the most critical and thorough examination of the 
proper sources of evidence. But it comes out from 
such an investigation with a clear, positive convic- 
tion that, regarded as a man, Jesus is not only like 
other men, but also different from other men ; that 
his unlikeness is an aspect of the truth or reality 
of his perfect manhood, and the ground of his uni- 
versal human helpfulness, especially of his ability 
to enable men each to fulfill the idea and purpose 
of his own personality. This development of the 
doctrine of our Lord's humanity is a characteristic 
and most important advance of modern theology, 
and we will therefore dwell upon it long enough to 
make evident its import. 

1. The uniqueness of Jesus's humanity appears 
in its universality. Every other man finds a limita- 
tion of his nature more or less positive, more or less 
influential, in his peculiar temperament. Though 
ordinarily not determinative, at least as respects 
the higher forms of the mind's action, it is always 
a modifying and differentiating power. Somewhat 
higher than individualizing forces of this sort are 
those innate mental tendencies and aptitudes which 
prompt or facilitate different kinds of labor. Each 
man finds it easier to work in certain directions or 
ways than in others. And then there is an endless 
variety of personal force and character secured 
through the proportion of powers which creative 
wisdom allots. An accomplished critic has pointed 



THE INCARNATION. 19 

out, if memory serves us, that Plato, Milton, Ed- 
wards, Napoleon, John Howard, each possessed in 
a conspicuous degree the gift of imagination, and 
that it was the modification of this common en- 
dowment by other gifts with which it was associated 
that made one a speculative philosopher, another a 
poet, another a theologian, another a soldier, another 
a philanthropist. And thus it comes about that no 
one person is absolutely like or can adequately rep- 
resent any other person. This peculiarity which 
distinguishes one man from another and from every 
other we call his individuality. It fits him for his 
place and calling. It is his distinction. But it is 
also his limitation. 

The uniqueness of Christ's humanity appears in 
this, that it was not thus circumscribed. He was 
an individual man, but his individuality is his uni- 
versality. He was " the Son of Man." x That 
which distinguishes Him from all other men is 
that He represents them all. His separation from 
any one of us is that which brings Him near to 
every one of us. His peculiarity is that no man's 
nature is so peculiar that He cannot comprehend it. 
He has kinship with us all by being our common 
Head. His benevolence embraced all men of every 
race, age, and clime. Whosoever does his will is 
his mother, sister, brother. His words are not 
those of any school of thought. His death was for 
every man. The record, "in all points tempted 

1 On the significance of this title see note by Dr. Westcott 
in Speaker's Commentary, ii. 33-35. 



20 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

like as we are," is as true for one reader as for 
another. A life so comprehensive and complete 
requires as its basis and prerequisite a nature 
equally universal. And in this — its recognized 
and evident universality — Christ's human nature 
is without a counterpart. 

2. The uniqueness of his humanity is further 
manifest from its participation in the work of me- 
diation between God and men. How essential is 
the part it sustains in this work is suggested by 
the Apostle's declaration, " one Mediator, also, be- 
tween God and men, himself man." This media- 
torial office Jesus alone of all men sustains. He 
alone is Prophet, Priest, and King. So exalted, 
so transcendent, are the services He renders that it 
is sometimes difficult to make real to our minds 
that it is through the human nature of Christ they 
are achieved. And since the Scriptures themselves 
assure us that the divine nature entered into this 
partnership by which heaven and earth are united, 
God and man are reconciled, it is very easy, in the 
effulgence of the divine glory which invests the 
Redeemer, to lose sight of that humanity which He 
ever bore, and by which He accomplished his de- 
livering and saving work. Yet if we commit our- 
selves trustingly and fearlessly to the authoritative 
Scriptural representation, we shall soon discover 
that the humanity of Christ is not set before us in 
the New Testament as sustaining merely a con- 
ditional or adminicular relation to a work whose 
intrinsic and essential value comes from another 



THE INCARNATION. 21 

source. On the contrary, throughout its entire 
achievement we everywhere see as an integral and 
necessary part of it the obedience, suffering, sacri- 
fice, victory, and glorification of a human nature 
as real as our own. That this achievement had a 
lustre and value transcending anything possible in 
a merely human experience is also true, as the 
faith of the church has ever held. But we are not 
to conceive of this as an arbitrary imputation of 
value. For this humanity was fashioned to be the 
perfect organ and instrument of revelation, to be 
freely swayed and controlled in all its movements 
by the will of God, to be more and more filled with 
his gifts as its powers expanded from infancy to 
maturity, to receive the Spirit without measure, to 
be transfigured by the indwelling Deity, to be glo- 
rified in God. All its experiences, whether active 
or passive, were those of a nature created capacious 
of Deity. This is true also of other men according 
to their measure. Indeed, it is the highest note 
and attribute of humanity at large. Christ could 
not be a representative man and a mediator, if his 
humanity were not real. But it lies also in his 
mediatorship that He is the head of the race, and 
not a mere member of it, and that humanity in 
Him becomes receptive of the divine fullness, so 
that there are gathered up in Him all divine gifts 
for men. 

3. And this leads to a yet higher peculiarity in 
which the uniqueness of his humanity is evident. 
The best gifts are personal. The gift of supreme 



22 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

and infinite love is personal. The divine gift to 
humanity is the Incarnation. "The Word became 
flesh." The uniqueness of Christ's humanity most 
evidently appears in this, that its entire existence 
is in personal union with the divine nature. Its 
coming into existence was by an incarnation of the 
divine Word. We touch here the most mysterious 
doctrine of Christianity. We approach it first of 
all as an attested fact. Certain questions respect- 
ing it, problems to which it necessarily gives rise, 
will be considered farther on. Here we deal with 
it as a revealed fact. The Word became flesh not 
at Jesus's baptism, not at his resurrection or as- 
cension, but this was the beginning of his life, that 
the second Person of the Trinity was made in the 
likeness of man, so that it was predicted that the 
holy thing which should be born should be called 
the Son of God, and that the Son of the Virgin 
should be named Immanuel ; and when the event 
occurred it was announced to the shepherds : 
" There is born to you this day ... a Saviour 
which is Christ the Lord ; " and wise men, guided 
by the star, blended their rejoicings with those of 
the heavenly host, and when they saw the young 
child fell down and worshiped Him. Make of 
these accounts what we may, they are the fitting 
beginning of the historic life that then appeared, 
and its only adequate premise, as Origen long ago. 
discerned. And if we pursue the narrative in 
either of the Gospels we constantly observe the 
same phenomena. The evidences of a complete 



THE INCARNATION. 23 

human nature multiply as we read, but not less 
manifest is the one Person who is the centre to 
which all attributes and acts are ever referred ; and 
so wondrously adjusted is all this that, in reviewing 
the history of the reception which these accounts 
have received from the great mass of readers, noth- 
ing is more striking and nothing more uniform 
than the conviction which has prevailed that, from 
the manger to the cross and from the cross to the 
throne, it is one and only one Person who lived, 
suffered, died, and was believed to have risen from 
the tomb and to have ascended on high. 

And this first distinct impression is only deep- 
ened by the most critical study. In no event of 
Jesus's history, at no moment, and in no occur- 
rence, whether in the accounts given by the synop- 
tists or in the more ideal representations of the 
fourth Gospel, is there disclosed anything like a 
division of his Person. If He is weary at the well 
his weariness is that of One conscious of his power 
to give living water, of which if a man drink he 
shall never thirst. If He is tempted it is with the 
voice still audible in the skies : " Thou art my be- 
loved Son." If He is defenseless He knows that 
with a word legions of angels would gather for his 
protection. If He prays we hear the words : 
"Father, glorify Thou Me . . . with the glory 
which I had with Thee before the world was." So 
when we listen to his declarations respecting him- 
self we are constantly reminded that his conscious- 
ness is unlike that of any mere man. We see a 



24 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

human countenance, but as we gaze it is transfig- 
ured. We look upon a human form, but as we be- 
hold it ascends and is glorified. For this Son of 
Man has power to forgive sins, and is come to save 
the lost and to give his life a ransom, and his flesh 
is meat indeed. And in the disclosures of prophecy 
this union of his humanity with divinity is set forth 
as indissoluble and eternal. What is commonly, 
though in too limited a way, called his mediatorial 
kingdom will come to an end when the creation, in 
the Person of its redemptive Head and Lord, will 
bow before the throne, and God will be all in all. 
That cycle of history introduced by Adam's trans- 
gression, or earlier in the sin of angelic spirits, will 
come to a close, and with it that form of dominion 
determined by the existence of unvanquished rebel- 
lion ; but the end will be not only a consummation, 
but a new beginning, — the beginning of a manifes- 
tation of the divine glory before impossible and un- 
endurable. Yet still will there be a creation, and 
that creation will be exalted through its Head ; and 
still at its head will stand the man Christ Jesus, 
forever receiving the revelations of infinite wisdom 
and love, forever dispensing them to the universe ; 
and still to this Temple will the tribes go up, and 
in Him and through Him worship and adore. 

II. The unity of Christ's Person. The thoughts 
thus far presented introduce us to the most difficult 
problem of Christian theology. They also, it is be- 
lieved, prepare for its more adequate treatment. 
There are those who would dismiss it at once as 



THE INCARNATION. 25 

insoluble and unpractical. But experience shows 
that such a treatment does not leave the fact to 
operate in its integrity, but results in one-sided or 
contradictory statements, in the practical accept- 
ance of inferior and misleading theories, and in a 
loss of influential religious motives. Theories on 
such a subject must be imperfect and more or less 
tentative. They should be controlled by the facts, 
and should advance with increase in knowledge. 
But some theory men always will have, for it is an 
instinct of reason to combine, classify, and hold by 
means of some governing conception. As a matter 
of fact, although the more important ecumenical 
councils proposed no dogma on this subject, a the- 
ory first authoritatively stated in the sixth century 
by a Byzantine emperor, Justin II., in his famous 
" Edict of Peace," and more fully developed in the 
symbol of the Sixth Council, and fraught with 
many and great practical evils, has dominated a 
large portion of Christendom to the present hour, 
and appears distinctly in so valuable and popular a 
work as Canon Liddon's "Bainpton Lectures on 
Our Lord's Divinity." We cannot frame a com- 
plete theory, but there is a choice of theories, and 
modern Theology can at least point out positive 
advances and improvements of no inferior impor- 
tance. 

The unity of Christ's Person needs to be consid- 
ered in three relations, namely, in its connection 
with the personality of the Being who became in- 
carnate, with the act of Incarnation, and with the 
personal consciousness of the historic Christ. 



26 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

It is a commonplace of theology that the person- 
ality of Christ is from the personality of the Logos. 
For long this position has been understood to im- 
ply the impersonality of the human nature and its 
subjection to the divine. Canon Liddon, following 
the theory to which we have just referred, treats 
Christ's manhood as a vesture or robe or instru- 
ment of the eternal Word. All its volitions are 
willed, he teaches, by God incarnate. Such a con- 
ception is inconsistent with the integrity of Christ's 
human nature, with the exemplary value of his 
obedience, with revealed facts in his life. It in- 
troduces a hopeless breach between the Jesus of 
history and the Christ of faith, and thus would 
bring about a decision of this leading Christologi- 
cal question of our time fatal to the claim of Chris- 
tianity. But this unfortunate exaggeration should 
not prejudice us against the important truth that 
Christ's personality is directly and indissolubly 
connected with that of the divine Word. The one 
is a true revelation and outgrowth of the other. 
The personality of the Word originates the person- 
ality realized in the life of Christ, determines its 
character, gives to it its inward law, secures its 
unity, and this none the less, but rather all the 
more, because the humanity of our Lord is ideally 
complete and perfect. 

The Scriptures reveal to us the second Person of 
the Trinity as the Word, and as the Son, of God. 
Both appellations lead us to think of God in his 
ethical nature. He is truth and He is love. The 



THE INCARNATION. 27 

second Person in the Trinity represents to us God's 
disposition to reveal and impart himself. Why 
should God create ? He has all the resources of 
wisdom, power, being, in himself. The reason or 
motive cannot be found in these perfections. He 
creates because He is love, and love in God as in 
man is self -communicative and self -imparting. Cre- 
ation is divine expression, and it is something 
more. It is realization. When a distinguished 
author of fiction was told that the death of a cer- 
tain character, a creation of her genius, had moved 
a friend as though personally bereaved, she ex- 
pressed with greatest intensity the same feeling. 
Parents live again in their children. Sonship in 
its highest conception is realization, — the image 
and reproduction of self -hood. The Love revealed 
in the eternal Son, the mystery of the divine Son- 
ship, solves 'the mystery of creation. It determines 
also its character. The revealing and communica- 
tive purpose of the Father through the Son can 
only find its adequate expression in a nature in 
which there shall be a realization of the divine na- 
ture in the mode and form appropriate to crea- 
tion. An ideal humanity is the culmination of 
such a realization. " The Word became flesh." 
He carries the creative — now also through sin 
the redemptive — purpose to its height of achieve- 
ment. He creates a human soul which is as real 
and true a counterpart and realization of his own 
nature as He is himself the express image of the 
Father. And there is no more mystery in this 



28 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

than there is in God's creating at all. It is but 
one step farther on and higher up than that of the 
first creation. The self -revealing, self-communicat- 
ing Love of God, the Word and Son of God who 
created in the beginning, creates in " the fullness 
of the time " a nature which is the perfect coun- 
terpart of his own, its human side and means of 
realization, in order that divine revelation and im- 
partation may reach their highest possible com- 
pleteness and may not be hindered even by the 
malevolence and guilt of human sin. The mys- 
tery of the Incarnation, like that of creation, loses 
itself in the higher mystery of a Fatherhood and 
Sonship in the nature of God, — - in other words, 
in the ineffable fullness of his love. 

1. We start, therefore, with a conception of the 
human nature of Christ as created by the Word 
and Son of God for the realization in finite form of 
that which is his own personal characteristic, as 
created to express his truth and grace, and to share 
with Him in his Father's love. In its very idea 
and essence the human nature of Christ is adapted 
to such a purpose. It is finite, and the Word who 
created it is infinite. But we do not move in our 
thinking, if we think correctly on this subject, 
merely on this plane of contrasts. We may not 
forget them, but they are only a part of the truth. 
The divine and human natures in Christ are essen- 
tially related to each other. The human nature is 
the divine nature humanly expressed and realized. 
The one should be as closely connected with the 



THE INCARNATION. 29 

other in our conception as a word with the thought 
it utters. The thought is unexpressed without the 
word. The word is empty save as it is the bearer 
of the thought. The relation is as intimate as this, 
but it is of a higher kind. A word is a breath, a 
transient, fugitive thing. Christ's human nature 
is a real image of the divine Word. That Word 
has personality. His word which He utters in 
creating the human soul of Christ is personal. The 
human nature of Christ is in finite form the per- 
sonal word of that eternal Word. It is not a for- 
eign nature. If it were we could not possibly re- 
tain at once its integrity and its personal union 
with the divine nature. The new and fundamen- 
tal thought in modern Christology is the essential 
relation of the two natures, so that either can know 
and realize itself in the other. This being appre- 
hended, the standing difficulty with the doctrine is, 
if not removed, so reduced that it ceases to be an 
objection. 

2. This brings us to our second point, the act of 
incarnation as constitutive of the unity of Christ's 
Person. We have, as elements of the union, the 
divine nature as possessed by the Logos, or in that 
mode of being which characterizes his existence, 
and an ideally perfect humanity. Such a human 
nature must be personal. The divine nature in the 
Logos also is personal. Yet neither in itself is a 
person. The Logos is a person only with, in, and 
through the Father and the Spirit. The human 
nature is a person only with, in, and through the 



30 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Logos. The central point of Christ's personality- 
falls into the central point of Absolute Personality. 
Otherwise a person would be the object of supreme 
worship exterior to and additional to the one only- 
God. Recent writers who have derived the person- 
ality of Christ from the human nature, or else have 
made it simply a resultant of the union of natures, 
have not duly guarded this point. They have had 
a truth at heart, the vindication of the reality of 
Jesus's humanity. An impersonal human nature, 
they have seen, is something defective and unreal. 
But in recovering this essential truth, it is not nec- 
essary to go to either of the extremes just indicated. 
The constitutive act for Christ's Person is the union 
of two natures. One of these, the human, is only 
potentially personal, and is capable, by its very 
constitution, of entering into a divine life, of find- 
ing the truth of its existence in God. The other is 
a particular mode of the divine being, not in itself 
a person, but the bearer of a personal principle, 
and capable of self-realization in a human life. 
The act of incarnation is the union of these two. 

3. The self-consciousness of Jesus. We have 
noticed before what it is as disclosed to us in the 
evangelical narratives. We consider it now in its 
basis and necessary form. 

All our experiences arise from our constitution 
as embodied spirits, and our entire consciousness 
reflects this union of body and soul. So Christ's 
history has for its foundation the union of two 
natures. His personality presupposes this union. 



THE INCARNATION. 31 

It is formative for his life and consciousness, just 
as the constitution of the soul in union with the 
body is the foundation of its history. The analogy 
is not perfect, but in both cases alike two elements 
without confusion or loss of properties are so united 
as to be the germ of a development. The person- 
ality of Christ existed primarily as a latent power, 
as does all other human personality. And as the 
basis was complex, so the unfolding consciousness ; 
never simply divine, never merely human ; never 
the two in addition, or collocation, or separation, 
the one remaining unaffected by the other ; never 
confused, blended, interchanged. That which is 
divine shines in and through what is human ; that 
which is human possesses and therefore can reveal 
what is divine. It is like the union in physics of 
force and matter, only without there being on either 
side inertia. It is like the union of reason and 
understanding in rational thought, only it is far 
higher than a harmony of faculties. The divine na- 
ture and the human interpenetrate each the other. 
The divine informs the human. The human re- 
ceives and expresses the divine. The one in con- 
descending love and sympathy makes everything 
belonging to the other its own. The latter appre- 
hends whatever the former has as its own good, the 
truth, the perfection in which it finds its own ful- 
fillment. And of this process, which is ever recip- 
rocal, there is in consciousness a centre. It is the 
personality of the creative Word, but not simply 
this. It is the personality of the created nature, 



32 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

but not merely this. It is the one as affected by 
the other. It is the latter fulfilled in the former. 
It is that point of rest and union, and therefore of 
life and power, where the divine nature realizes the 
experiences of the human as its own, where the hu- 
man realizes that its completeness and perfection 
are in God. It is the centre of a divine-human 
consciousness, and this personal centre is the God- 
Man. 

This personality was not fully realized in the be- 
ginning. There was not only growth of the hu- 
manity of Jesus, but a progressive union with the 
divine. Here is the truth in the theories of the 
Kenotists, who maintain that the Word, at the In- 
carnation, laid aside, or suspended the exercise of, 
his attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and 
the like. This is but a clumsy and somewhat vio- 
lent and unethical method of appropriating certain 
undeniable facts ; such as the limitation of Jesus's 
knowledge, the perfect human reality of his earthly 
life, the veritable growth of his consciousness and 
personality from the moment of the Incarnation. 
The Incarnation itself, though real at the begin- 
ning, was also a process which had steps which the 
records of Jesus's life enable us in some degree to 
trace and understand. At every stage his history 
had a meaning for himself. Not only his birth, but 
his visit to the Temple, his baptism, his tempta- 
tion, transfiguration, crucifixion, resurrection, were 
epochs in his consciousness, events fraught with 
meaning and new powers for his own Person. The 



THE INCARNATION. 33 

babe of Bethlehem resting in its mother's arms was 
not yet in personality the sleepless sufferer of Geth- 
semane ; the marred and stricken victim on the 
cross was not yet the Son of Man ascending in the 
cloud of the Father's glory, the exalted and en- 
throned Mediator, who is to be the fully manifested 
Head of the new creation. His life is a history. 
It is also a divine purpose, a plan of revelation and 
impartation which includes creation, redemption, 
and the glories of the eternal reign. On his head 
are many crowns. The Life of Jesus should be 
studied as such a history. Everything in his 
earthly career is preparatory to the heavenly for 
himself as for others. Everything human in it 
brings God near to us while remaining most truly 
human. Everything divine in it is adjusted to such 
a medium and progress of revelation, and to all its 
acts of righteousness and holy love. 

III. We have already entered upon the third 
phase of our subject, the significance of his Person. 
His advent is a part of " the purpose of creation." 
The motive of redemption lies nearest to us in our 
consciousness of sin and guilt. But redemption 
itself cannot be understood apart from creation 
and its end. Accordingly the apostle whose pres- 
entation, in his earlier writings, of man's sin and 
misery and of Christ's propitiatory sacrifice has 
shaped Western theology, in his later epistles con- 
nects the entire work of redemption with Christ 
considered as the Creator and the Final Cause of 
the universe. He who is the Head of the redeemed 

3 



34 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY, 

body, the church, is before all things, and in Him 
all things consist, and through Him all things are 
reconciled, whether things upon the earth or things 
in the heavens. The same conception is dominant 
in the Gospel and the Epistles of John. 

Christ is not only the earthly culmination, but 
also the eternal source and principle, of revelation. 
He who created all things is ipso facto the Re- 
vealer. In the Incarnation He has carried revela- 
tion to its highest conceivable stage and mode, how- 
ever augmented it may be in degree and power. 
Were the divine Being at any point in the future 
to cease to make himself known through this method 
of real manifestation there would be retrogression 
and decline in God's self-communication to his 
creatures. 

Christ is the Head of the church. All its mem- 
bers are united to each other in Him. We cannot 
suppose this relation to terminate in the triumph 
of his kingdom. It is moral and spiritual. Grati- 
tude for redemption can never be exhausted nor 
superseded. When we further reflect that redemp- 
tion recovers the image and likeness in which man 
was created, and which were first fully shown in 
Jesus, we see that his Headship has a foundation 
in the permanent constitution of the soul, and is 
fitly as enduring as its immortality. 

When, by the aid of hints and suggestions of 
revelation, we look out still more widely upon the 
universe that is and is to be we see an equally 
imperishable and yet vaster unity. The essence of 



THE INCARNATION. 35 

all religion is communion with God. The most 
perfect realization, and therefore the most adequate 
medium and guaranty of such fellowship, are given 
in the Incarnation. All the elements of a final, 
perfect, absolute religion for all finite spirits are 
realized and made available in the Person of the 
God-Man. It is fitting that such a Person should 
be, and should always be, not only the Head of the 
redeemed, but also the Head of all other holy be- 
ings in the entire creation. This is his position 
according to the Scriptures, and nothing can be 
conceived more congruous and rational. 

Within the narrower range of vision opened to 
us in the history of the earth and of man science is 
beginning to discover the traces of a vast progress 
and development. Such an evolution looks to an 
Incarnation as its adequate goal. All things point 
to man, and man is perfected in the Son of Man. 
The only idea which fulfills the aspirations and 
harmonizes the discords in man's religious history 
is such a union of transcendence and immanence, 
necessity and liberty, idea and fact, law and grace, 
as meets us in Christ. The history of religion 
leads on and up to Him, and He possesses all the 
resources requisite for its greatest possible future 
growth. He is the Alpha and Omega ; the Abso- 
lute, revealed ; the Infinite, personally disclosed ; 
the eternal Power that makes for righteousness, 
realized in the Righteous One. The endeavor to 
Christologize theology, that is, to make Christ the 
centre, is, in the last analysis, simply a return to 



36 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

reality, to the truth of fact, of history, of creation, 
of humanity, of the divine method of revelation, of 
the actual government and the eternal kingdom of 
God. It is thinking God's thoughts after Him in 
his own disclosures of his being, character, and will. 
A theology which is not Christocentric is like a 
Ptolemaic astronomy, — it is out of true relation 
to the earth and the heavens, to God and his uni- 
verse. 

What has been said implies the absoluteness of 
Christianity. It is the religion of the cross and of 
redemption ; and it is more. It is the religion of 
nature and reason as well. Its foundations were 
laid in creation, in the constitution of the human 
soul, in its essential relations to the nature of God. 
It meets the obstacles interposed by sin and guilt, 
by acts of redeeming love which are its glory ; but 
its ultimate reason and motive are to be found in 
the ethical nature of God, which caused Him to will 
that the good which is original and eternal in Him 
should be imparted to beings made to be partakers 
of the divine nature. It comes into existence 
through the fulfillment of an absolute purpose of 
divine self-revelation and self-communication. As 
it is not in its origin contingent upon sin, so it is 
not to pass away with the conquest of evil. The 
church has always had some sense of this truth of 
the essential supremacy of Christianity. Cyprian 
had never persuaded men that there is no salvation 
outside of the pale of the church had not Peter, 
filled with the Holy Ghost, proclaimed that there 



THE INCARNATION. 37 

is but one name wherein we must be saved. The 
caricature implies the original, the counterfeit the 
genuine. The church needs to-day, in all its thought 
and life, the stiffening power and the stimulus of 
this truth of the absoluteness of Christiauity. It 
is gained by a right apprehension of the Incarna- 
tion. And it is, in our judgment, one of the great- 
est services the " New Theology " is rendering, 
that it is making more and more evident and fa- 
miliar both the premise and the conclusion of this 
great argument, developing the Biblical teachings 
which authorize it and the auxiliary testimonies 
which are becoming available through the modern 
study of the history of religion and through the 
progress of science. 

We cannot dwell as we would upon the imme- 
diately practical advantages of a theology which 
builds upon the fact and doctrine of the Incarna- 
tion. It is evident that the more clearly the reality 
and worth of the Person of Christ are discerned 
the stronger becomes the motive to every Christian 
virtue. Nothing, as we have said, at the present 
time is more needed in this sphere than a firmer 
conviction of the solidity, the reality, the absolute 
supremacy of the gospel. Make its central Person 
contingent, relative, transitory, and such is the out- 
look of men to-day, and such the whole attitude of 
their minds to truth, that they cannot be won to 
that absolute devotion to Christ which is essential 
to Christian living and Christian work. All men 
and all generations that have powerfully advanced 



38 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Christ's kingdom have first been subdued by Him. 
He was their absolute Lord. How, with the ex- 
pansion of knowledge characteristic of our age, 
how, to-day, is the Person of Christ to fill the vis- 
ion of his followers as He filled that of the martyr 
church ? The solution of the problem, it is be- 
lieved, is to be found in such an advanced doctrine 
of the Incarnation as that we have attempted to 
outline. With the larger knowledge of creation 
there should be gained a truer perception of what 
Dr. Westcott has felicitously called " The Gospel 
of Creation." l The gospel of redemption will not 
thereby be obscured, but it will be set in larger 
relations. 

We do not claim for the later thought upon the 
Incarnation any exclusive originality. Fruitful 
suggestions for this doctrine, reaching beyond the 
statements of creeds and the ordinary practice of 
the church, lie all along the path of its history. 
For half a century it has been specially prominent 
in theological investigations and controversies. 
Our contention is that the " New Theology " is 
appropriating the results of these discussions and 
applying them, that it is an advance upon previous 
efforts in the same field, and that its merits in this 
regard entitle it to friendly consideration, and are 
a pledge of its usefulness. And for the sake of 
distinctness we will close with a concise summary 

1 See his instructive and admirable essay with this title in 
The Epistles of St. John, pp. 273-315. London : Macrnillan 
& Co. 1883. 



THE INCARNATION. 39 

of points in which this progress appears to us to 
be especially manifest. 1. In a better understand- 
ing of Christ's humanity, — its historic reality, its 
universality, its essential relation to the divine 
nature, its personality. 2. In a better apprehen- 
sion of Christ's personality — the personal union 
in Him of divinity and humanity. Neither nature 
is sacrificed to the other, and such a conception 
of each is gained that their union appears as the 
necessary basis of the one historic, personal life. 
3. In a better understanding of the actual history 
of that life, whether considered in its relation to 
the divine plan of creation and revelation, or to the 
actual events in its earthly career, or to its state of 
exaltation and glorification. 4. In a better under- 
standing of the revealed central position of Christ 
in the universe, and of the absoluteness of Chris- 
tianity. 5. In the consequent gain of a better po- 
sition from which to justify and develop the mo- 
tives to Christian virtue and activity. 

The question which lies nearest the heart of all 
modern disputes in theology is the one already 
stated : Is the Jesus whose life we know on its hu- 
man side the Christ in whom religious faith finds 
its appropriate and permanently satisfying object ? 
Stated philosophically, all modern conceptions of 
Christ and of Christianity reduce to these three: 
We have either the historical without the ideal, or 
the ideal without the historical, or the union of 
both. We maintain that the " New Theology" 



40 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

answers this fundamental question more philosoph- 
ically, more Biblically, more practically than any 
preceding theology. The Jesus of history is the 
Christ of faith ; the Christ of faith is God revealed 
and known. 



III. 

THE ATONEMENT. 

The doctrine of Atonement was later in its his- 
torical development than the doctrine of Incarna- 
tion. Not until council after council had adopted 
exact articles concerning the Person of Christ was 
there any considerable discussion concerning the 
Work of Christ. The fact of atonement through 
the death of the Redeemer was accepted from the 
first with penitence and trust, but scarcely any at- 
tempt was made to discover the reasons which made 
it necessary and right that Christ should be offered 
for the sins of the world. Even in the eleventh 
century the theory was somewhat prevalent that 
Christ's death was a ransom paid to the devil. 
Why the development of this doctrine should have 
begun so late we need not now take time to in- 
quire. It suggests the fact that there has never at 
any time been such agreement concerning the phi- 
losophy of atonement as has been secured con- 
cerning the person of our Lord. The church even 
now waits for a doctrinal statement which shall be 
comprehensive, satisfactory, and, at the same time, 
free from ethical objections and from inconsis- 
tencies. It is the object of the present paper 



42 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

simply to indicate the lines along which intelligent 
Christian thought is moving, and to recognize some 
of the conclusions which are gaining acceptance in 
respect to the revelation of God's love in the sac- 
rifice of Christ. It will be left to the reader to 
note for himself the modification, or even disap- 
pearance, of crude theories through which, at one 
time or another, atonement has been regarded. 

The starting-point from which inquiry has usu- 
ally set forth has been the sin of man. Man sinned, 
and the race became corrupted. Therefore, Jesus 
was born, suffered, and died, in order that man 
might be saved from sin. But this view is too nar- 
row. It puts part of the truth in place of the 
\ whole. It virtually declares that if there had been 
no sin, we should not have known God in Christ. 
The old Latin hymn would have been correct in 
representing sin as a blessing, &felix culpa, since 
through it we have such and so great a Redeemer. 
There is also a difficulty in believing that but for 
this insignificant earth the most glorious revelation 
of God might not have been given at all. The 
principal defect, however, is that Christ is made 
contingent on sin, and that sin, therefore, appears 
to be not only more fundamental than Christ, but 
an absolute necessity, in order that God might re- 
veal himself in Christ. The old sub- and supra- 
lapsarian theories are wayrnarks of the struggle of 
profound minds with this great difficulty. 

But redemption from sin, even if the most im- 
portant, is but one of the revelations of God in 



THE ATONEMENT. 43 

Christ ; and to understand it we need to find its 
relation and proportion. The correct and Scrip- 
tural starting-point is the mediation of Christ in its 
universal character. Christ mediates God to the 
entire universe. Through Christ the worlds were 
made, and through Him they consist. In Him 
were all things created, in the heavens and upon 
the earth, things visible and things invisible. To 
Him ultimately not the earth only, but the whole 
universe is to be made subject, things in heaven 
and things in earth and things under the earth. 
John as well as Paul perceives this truth. Indeed, 
the Gospel of John comes to earthly redemption 
from the larger view of universal mediation. First 
we learn that all things were made by Him, and 
without Him was not anything made that was 
made, — and not until He is known as Head of the 
universe do we perceive, nor can we well under- 
stand, that He is the Life and Light of men. The 
whole truth, then, is that Christ is the revealing 
or manifesting principle ; or, more exactly, that 
through the Logos, the Word, the second Person 
of the Trinity, that which is absolute fullness and 
truth in God is communicated into finite exist- 
ences ; that through the Eternal Word the created 
universe is possible ; that therefore the universe is 
Christ's, the revolving worlds and they that dwell 
therein are his, to the glory of God the Father. 
The created universe and all rational beings are 
through Christ and in Christ. Therefore He me- 
diates or reveals God to any part of his universe 



y 



44 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

according to the condition or need which may* exist 
in that part. If at any point his world is sick, 
weary, guilty, hopeless, there Christ is touched and 
hurt, and there He appears to restore and comfort. 
This earth is, it may be, the sheep lost in the wil- 
derness, while the ninety and nine are safe in the 
fold. Christ cannot be indifferent to the least of 
his creatures in its pain and wickedness, for his 
universe is not attached to him externally, but vi- 
tally. He is not a governor set over it, but is its 
life everywhere. He feels its every movement, most 
of all its spiritual life and spiritual feebleness or 
disease, and appears in his glorious power even at 
the remotest point. If there were but one sinner, 
^ Christ would seek him. If but one planet were in- 
vaded by sin, Christ would come to its relief. It 
is, of course, true that in order to reveal God in a 
world of sin and guilt the historical conditions, and 
especially the suffering conditions, of our Lord's 
life must have been, in important respects, what 
they would not otherwise have been. It is also 
probable that the profoundest disclosure of the love 
of God in Christ has been made in the redemption 
of sinful man. But only the conditions, not the 
power and reality of Christ, are contingent on sin. 
As the redemption of men reveals to principalities 
and powers in heavenly places the manifold wisdom . 
of God, so our thought of the Person and work of 
Christ is enlarged by knowing his universal rela- 
tions, and we perceive more clearly the significance 
of his humiliation to earth. Other orders of beings 



THE ATONEMENT. 45 

know Christ better because He suffered on earth. 
"This planet," says Dorner, "maybe the Beth- 
lehem of the universe." But if this planet and the 
sin of man exhaust the meaning of Christ's media- 
tion, we are left among absurdities and confusions. 
Bethlehem itself could not be a sacred name if 
there were no Jerusalem, nor Samaria, nor utter- 
most parts of the earth, to which from Bethlehem 
He goes out, whose goings forth have been from of 
old, from everlasting. 

The opinion, therefore, has reason in it that 
there would have been the Incarnation even if 
there had been no sin. It is not easv to believe 
that the Word of God would not have become flesh 
but for sin. Man was created a physical being. 
He was destined for a physical, earthly develop- 
ment, and to people the material world. In his 
perfection he is to have that which corresponds to 
the body, — a spiritual body. His knowledge of 
God was to come through Christ ; and the nearest 
manifestations, we can readily imagine, would in 
any event have corresponded with the actual con- 
ditions of man's existence and progress. It may 
be, indeed, that the human race would have come 
earlier into the knowledge of God through Christ 
if there had been no sin ; that, while sin had much 
to do with the conditions of our Lord's life and 
work, it may actually have retarded his historical 
appearance. 

It would be interesting to show, if space allowed, 
that the Incarnation itself has important relations 



46 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

to the reconciliation of man and God ; that the 
Person of Christ, realizing as it does the affinity 
of divine and human, the perfection of human char- 
acter in union with God, and other possibilities of 
humanity, has more to do with our restoration to 
God than we have commonly supposed. And it is 
always to be remembered that the work of Christ 
has no meaning apart from his Person ; that his 
work is not something set off by itself on which we 
can depend, as if the Atonement were a thing, a 
quantity of suffering endured, an impersonal re- 
sult, " His own self bare our sins in his own body 
on the tree.'' " God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto himself." 

Having gained what may be called the perspec- 
tive of the earthly revelation of God in Christ, we 
are at a point where we can inquire concerning the 
specific relations of our Lord's sacrifice to the re- 
demption of sinners. The very best word the gos- 
pel gives to express the complete result of Christ's 
work is reconciliation, a word signifying that God 
is brought into a new relation to man and that man 
is brought into a new relation with God. The ul- 
timate fact, however, is that God's relation to man 
is changed in Christ from what it otherwise could 
be, and that therefore man's relation to God is 
changed. Redemption thus originates with God, 
who in Christ finds a way through obstacles to the 
sinner, so that He can righteously forgive and 
bless. Because God is reconciled in Jesus Christ 
man repents and begins a new life. The gospel 



THE ATONEMENT. 47 

never reverses this order of dependence. It does 
not say that because man repents God is a forgiving 
God, but because God is a forgiving God therefore 
man repents. And it teaches also that God can 
be a forgiving God, because Christ suffered and 
died and rose again. 

How and why is this true ? Why cannot God 
forgive outright and unconditionally? What is 
that in the Person and work, and especially in the 
death of Christ without which God could not for- 
give men? What does Christ do to change the 
feeling or attitude of God towards the sinful race ? 
We no longer ask whether repentance is necessary 
or not, but only if repentance is not enough ; why 
should there be more and other than the turning 
away of man from sin and folly to God ? 

It might be enough to suggest, at this point, that s 
the power and inclination to repent are not found 
except when God is revealed in Christ ; that only 
because Christ has brought God to men in a new 
light are they stirred to penitence. But we must 
search for deeper truth. 

There is a movement of thought which has gone 
beneath or has gone back of the thinking which at 
one time was satisfied to rest in the sovereignty of 
God. All commands, penalties, favors, blessings 
issue, it was once thought, out of the will of God. 
It was God's will to accept Christ's sufferings as a 
substitute for the punishment man deserves, and 
ignorant, wicked man had no right to inquire, Why 
doest thou thus ? But the conviction is now clear 



48 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

that the will of God is directed by the reason of 
God ; that instead of saying it is right because God 
wills it we should rather say God walls it because 
it is right. Right and wrong, goodness and bad- 
ness, holiness and sin, have their own intrinsic qual- 
ity according to what they are. Righteousness is 
grounded in reason, is rational. Sin is against rea- 
son, is absurd. The consequences of holiness and 
of sin cannot be set aside by the will of God. His 
fiat cannot change the right and the reason of 
things. Therefore He does not punish man merely 
\ because He has threatened to punish, but He 
threatens punishment because it must in the nature 
of the case inevitably follow on sin. God cannot 
bless man in his sin ; otherwise He would not be 
God, and sin would not be sin. Distinctions of 
right and wrong, of true and false, would disap- 
pear, and moral chaos would ensue. The opinion 
that because God is good He will not let his chil- 
dren suffer, but will forgive them and save them, 
sees only the happiness of man, and has no per- 
ception of ethical well-being. What we are now 
emphasizing is the marked tendency of thought to 
recognize the intrinsic, necessary character of law 
and right, and the inevitableness of the results of 
conduct. This necessity was present to Anselm 
when he formulated the theory that an exact equiv- 
alent must be rendered for the penalty of sin ; that 
God must be satisfied completely, and could be sat- 
isfied only by the death of Christ, which takes the 
place of the infinite penalty of sin. His use of the 



THE ATONEMENT. 49 

principle was too literal and even mathematical, 
but he opened a vein of neglected truth. He em- 
phasized the necessity which resides in the ethical 
being of God, and which even his will cannot con- 
tradict nor supersede. The speculative thought of 
to-day which is farthest removed from the influence 
of the gospel cannot escape this conclusion. The 
ethical necessities are recognized. One writer who 
at the beginning of his book declares his indepen- 
dence of presuppositions on one side or the other 
comes at length, in his closing chapter, to the con- 
clusion that of necessity eternal perdition awaits 
those who transgress ethical law, and that the hand 
of omnipotence cannot snatch the wicked from their 
doom. 

The clearer recognition of ethical truth, as 
grounded in law and reason, has been accompanied 
by important modifications in the view of atone- 
ment. It is no longer believed that personal merit 
and demerit can be transferred from one to another. 
It is not believed that an exact quantity of punish- 
ment can be borne by an innocent for a guilty per- 
son. It is not believed that the consequences of sin 
can be removed from the transgressor by passing 
them on to another. Conduct, character, and con- 
dition are inseparable. The results of sin are part 
of the ethical personality, and cannot be detached, 
nor borne by another. 

But more than this is to be remarked. Not only 
have particular theories of atonement which are 
obviously artificial and unethical been discarded, 



/ 



/ 



50 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

but atonement itself has been declared impossible. 
It is thought that there can be no deliverance what- 
ever from the hard consequences of wrong-doing ; 
that whatsoever a man soweth that must he also 
reap ; that Jesus has no other power than that of 
a teacher who shows men the right way, and sum- 
mons them to such endeavor after improvement as 
they may still be capable of making. 

Now the message of the gospel unquestionably is 
that man is not bound under ethical in the sense in 
which he is bound under physical necessity ; that 
forces are available for the moral and spiritual life 
by which man can be delivered from the worst con- 
sequences of sin, and can become a new creature. 
Transformation may be rapid and complete. Man 
may be translated from the dominion of merciless 
necessity into the life of freedom and love. The 
new and higher force is the revelation of God in 
Christ, through which the power of sin is broken 
and the penalty of sin remitted. If all this is true, 
the gospel gains a profounder meaning than it has 
ever yielded before. The church comes now to 
man, well aware that he cannot be separated from 
custom, habit, heredity, fixedness of character, the 
social organism of which he is part. It is seen 
that redemption must be grounded in reason, and 
must meet the actual conditions of life and char- 
acter and society. Atonement must express and 
reveal God as the supreme Eeason and perfect 
Righteousness, who cannot deny himself, and who 
cannot disregard nor annul the moral law which is 



THE ATONEMENT. 51 

established in truth and right. Christian thought, 
having established itself on the intrinsic, absolute 
right and on the inexorableness of law so firmly 
that these may be accepted as postulates in all the 
inquiry, agreeing so far forth with Anselm on the 
one hand and with the latest natural ethics on the 
other, is going forward now to learn if any ethical 
ends are secured by the revelation of God in Christ, 
and secured in such a way that God energizes in 
man and society for a moral transformation so rad- 
ical and complete that it may be called salvation, 
redemption, eternal life, divine sonship. 

The New England theology is distinguished 
among systems of religious thought in this century 
in that it took up the problem at this stage and 
tried to find the truth in this relation. It attempted 
to discover the ethical ends which are secured by 
the atonement. It emphasized the fact that other 
methods than punishment can express the character 
of sin in the sight of God and of the universe. It 
asked the right question, and gained part of the 
right answer. It has not held its ground, because 
it practically exhausted the significance of atone- 
ment under the analogy of human governments and 
courts of justice, which are but one result, and 
rather a rude result, of the ethical life of man, and 
also because the approach of the penitent to God 
in Christ is more direct than it can ever be under 
the thought of a vast universal system of govern- 
ment. This is the question to-day concerning atone- 
ment, — What moral and spiritual ends are secured 



52 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

by the sacrificial life and death of Christ? How 
does God's attitude towards man change, and man's 
attitude towards God change, so that there is effi- 
cient power for the transformation of ethical and 
spiritual life as against the tendencies of moral cor- 
ruption? Evidently the result is of a kind that 
cannot be brought about by sheer omnipotence, but 
only, if at all, by truth and love. Thought must 
move in the spiritual, not in the physical realm. 

There are two lines of approach, which converge 
towards the same result, and both of which are de- 
termined by the mediation of Christ in what may 
properly enough be called his substitutionary rela- 
tion to men. 

One view of atonement is gained by considering 
the historical Christ in relation to humanity and as 
identified with it ; in which view we see that the 
race of men with Christ in it is essentially differ- 
ent in fact, and therefore in the sight of God, from 
the same race without Christ in it. It was found 
in our study of the Incarnation that Christ's unique- 
ness is his universality ; that while every other man 
has but a limited relation to his fellows Christ has 
affinity for all men ; that He draws all men unto 
Him ; that He possesses that which all men need. 
So we have become accustomed to the thought that 
Christ has an organic relation to the race. He is 
an individual, but an individual vitally related to 
every human being. He preferred to be called the 
Son of Man. Paul sees in Him the Head of hu- 
manity, the second Adam. He is one who is not 



THE ATONEMENT. 53 

himself a sinner, yet is a man ; who is not himself 
contending against sinful and corrupt tendencies, 
yet has so identified himself with humanity that its 
burden of suffering rested on Him, and every man 
was within reach of his sympathy. His divinity, 
indeed, is in nothing more clearly shown than in 
his perfect humanity ; in the fact that He was not 
merely the ideal man, but the universal man ; his 
humanity not something strange to his divinity, but 
its best and purest organ. 

Humanity may thus be thought of as offering 
something to God of eminent value. When Christ y ~ 
suffers, the race suffers. When Christ is sorrowful, 
the race is sorrowful. Christ realizes what human- 
ity could not realize for itself. The race may be 
conceived as approaching God, and signifying its 
penitence by pointing to Christ, and by giving ex- 
pression in Him to repentance which no words 
could utter. Thus we can regard Him as our sub- 
stitute, not because He stands apart, not because 
He is one and the race another, but because He is 
so intimately identified with us, and because in 
essential respects the life of every one is, or may be, 
locked in with his. The representative power which 
belongs to man in his various relations comes to its 
perfect realization in Christ. In the family, in y 
government, in business, in society, representative 
or substitutionary relations are the rule, not the 
exception. Much more has Christ the power per- 
fectly to represent us or to be substituted for us, be- 
cause there is no point of our real life where He is 



54 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

not in contact with us. Here is the truth of Mc- 
\ Leod Campbell's view of atonement. The entire 
race repents or is capable of repenting through 
Christ. It renders in Him a complete repentance. 
He is the Amen of humanity to the righteousness 
of God's law, to the ill desert of sin, to the justice 
of God's judgments. What was dimly shadowed 
under the old dispensation and in heathen wor- 
ship, through sacrifices expressing by an act what 
could not be expressed by a word, is taken up and 
carried on to perfect realization by the sacrifice 
and death of Christ, in which humanity offered its 
best, its holiest, to God. Thus all the figures and 
phraseology of the altar are properly and naturally 
applied to Christ. He is offered for our sins, in 
our stead, for our sakes. He is a propitiation to 
God. These expressions symbolize a real truth, 
because Christ was made in all respects like unto 
his brethren. 

But Christ's power to represent or be substituted 
for man is always to be associated with man's 
power to repent. The possibility of redeeming 
man lies in the fact that although he is by act and 
inheritance a sinner, yet under the appropriate in- 
fluences he is capable of repenting. The power of 
repentance remains, and to this power the gospel 
v addresses itself. Christ suffering and sympathiz- 
ing with men is able to awaken in them and express 
for them a real repentance. It is to this power that 
Christ, the holy and the merciful, attaches himself. 
Realizing it in some, and being able to realize it in 



THE ATONEMENT 65 

all, He represents humanity before God. Now the 
power of repentance, which, so far as it exists, is 
the power of recuperation, is superior to the neces- 
sities of past wrong-doing and of present habit. It 
is the one fact which can never be estimated for 
what it may do, which baffles the calculation of the 
wisest observers. The penitent man, so far as he 
really repents, is in the exercise of a freedom which 
resists and almost subjugates the forces of evil. In 
union with Christ, who brings spiritual truth and 
power to man, repentance is radical. Man left to 
himself cannot have a repentance which sets him 
free from sin and death. But in Christ he is moved 
to repentance which is revolutionary ; in Christ he 
can express repentance, for in union with Christ he 
adopts the feeling of Christ concerning sin against 
the God of love. If man unaided could become 
truly repentant, he would become holy, and would 
be the child of God. This was admitted by Jona- 
than Edwards. But it is only in Christ that he / 
has such knowledge of God and of himself as is 
necessary to a repentance which is revolutionary. 
It is not true, we admit and insist, that repentance 
without Christ is availing for redemption, for man 
of himself cannot repent ; but, on the other hand, 
it is not true that Christ's atonement has value 
without repentance. Christ's sacrifice avails with S 
God because it is adapted to bring man to repent- 
ance. This gives it ethical meaning and value. 
He is one, in with the race, who has the power of 
bringing it into sympathy w r ith his own feeling 



56 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

towards God and towards sin ; and so God looks on 
the race as having this power in Christ, a power 
which, when realized, melts away the iron fetters 
of what we call necessity and fate. The signifi- 
cance of the gospel on this side is that the sacrifice 
of Christ is not in vain ; that on account of Christ 
man can be delivered from condemnation, and can 
have God's smile instead of his frown; that the 
captive of nature and law can go free as a penitent, 
restored child of God, through the love of Him who 
is the Son of God and the Son of Man. 

The substitution is not of Christ standing on this 
side for the race standing on that side, but the race 
with Christ in it is substituted for the race without 
Christ in it. This Christ in with the race is re- 
garded by God as one who has those powers of in- 
struction, sympathy, purity which can be imparted 
to his brethren. Likewise the individual in Christ 
takes the place of the individual without Christ, is 
looked on as one whom Christ can bring to repent- 
ance and obedience, and so is justified even before 
faith develops into character. All is not accom- 
plished instantly, but the result was assured when 
Christ became obedient to the death of the cross. 
He saw Satan falling from heaven when as yet his 
disciples had made but a beginning of the subjuga- 
tion of evil. 

The race is reconstituted in Christ, and is other 
in the sight of God, because different in fact, be- 
catise containing powers for repentance and holiness 
which, without Christ, it would be hopelessly desti- 
tute of. 



THE ATONEMENT. 57 

The other line of approach is from God to man. 
The punishment and consequences of sin make real 
God's abhorrence of sin, and the righteousness of 
law. The sufferings and death of his only Son also 
realize God's hatred of sin and the righteous au- 
thority of law ; therefore punishment need not be 
exacted. This is a familiar line of reflection, and 
need not be followed in detail. Its meaning is that 
God cannot be regardless of law nor indifferent to 
sin in saving man from punishment. If the thought 
went no farther, this, at least, would be implied : 
that our redemption is not the act of omnipotence, 
but that it is in accordance with the rational and 
ethical being both of God and man. 

It must be confessed, however, that it is not clear 
how the sufferings and death of Christ can be sub- 
stituted for the punishment of sin ; how, because 
Christ made vivid the wickedness of sin and the 
righteousness of God, man is therefore any the less 
exposed to the consequences of sin. We must go 
on to the fact that Christ makes real very much 
more than God's righteous indignation against sin. 
The punishment of sin does not save men. It only 
vindicates God and his law. Christ, while declar- 
ing God's righteousness, reveals God seeking men, 
and at the cost of sacrifice. He shows that God 
loves men, and energizes in Christ to bring them to 
himself ; that really the wrath of God is only a 
manifestation of the love of God, since God cannot 
allow the sinner to be blessed in his sin. The very 
fact, that God's Son cannot be among men for 



58 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

their redemption except at the cost of suffering 
from the sin of man and of dying at their hands, 
shows both the intrinsic badness of sin and the 
undiscouraged love of God to sinners. What 
really occurs is the approach of God to men in 
Christ, who shows by his words and life the Father 
x unto them ; who draws them back to God in recoil 
from sin, and whose suffering, by reason of sin, 
condemned sin more unmistakably than the punish- 
ment of it could have done. 

Sin is to be looked on not only as an obstacle 
which keeps man from coming to God, but also as 
an obstacle which keeps God from coming to man. 
God loves man, and would bless him. But sin im- 
pedes God's love, sets it back, awakens God's dis- 
approval, so that instead of blessing he must con- 
demn and punish. The ideal relation of God is 
love, but the actual relation is wrath. The sin of 
man prevents God's love from flowing forth, so that 
the God of love is in reality hostile to man. In 
Christ God can come to man in another relation, 
because Christ is a new divine power in the race to 
turn it away from sin unto God. 

God does not become propitious because man re- 
pents and amends, for that is beyond man's power. 
He becomes propitious because Christ, laying down 
his life, makes the race to its worst individual ca- 
pable of repenting, obeying, trusting ; and He does 
this in such a way that God's abhorrence to sin is 
realized, the majesty of law honored, the sinner 
and the universe convinced of the righteousness of 
the divine judgments. 



THE ATONEMENT. 59 

The first and the greatest punishment of sin is 
separation from God, the withdrawal of those influ- 
ences from God by which man is blessed. The 
consequences of sin in body and character are sec- 
ondary, are only results of separation from God. 
It is because God is far away that such conse- 
quences follow. In Christ, the lowly, the suffering, 
the triumphant, God can come near toman to bless 
him. Christ brings God the Person to man the 
person, and in such manner that God is known as 
the God of holy love, the loving and holy Father. 
The goodness of God leads man to repentance. 
Man is at peace with God, and the worst punish- 
ment of sin is righteously removed. 

It is true, then, that Christ suffered for our sins, 
and that because He suffered our sins are forgiven. ^ 
But the suffering was borne because it lay in the 
path to redemption. The realization of God's love 
in Christ was possible only through the suffering 
and death of Christ ; and because He suffered and 
died in bringing the knowledge and love of God to 
men it is no longer necessary that men should suf- 
fer all the consequences of sin. The ethical ends > 
of punishment are more than realized in the pain 
and death of the Redeemer, through whom man 
is brought to repentance. His death is a new fact, ' 
an astonishing, revealing, persuasive, melting fact, 
in view of which it would be puerile to exact lit- 
eral punishment of those who are thereby made 
sorry for sin and brought in penitence to God. 
But it is all inseparable from repentance or appro- 



60 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

priation. There is thus a limit to the vicarious 
principle. It is limited in its application by the 
personal relation of every man to Christ. He who 
is not moved to penitence and faith by Christ is 
under a greater condemnation. If he is incorrigible 
the condemnation is final and irreversible. 

The large truth of atonement, however illus- 
trated, and from whatever side approached, is that 
except for Christ God could only punish sinners 
by withdrawing himself more and more from them ; 
that in Christ their repentance and renewal become 
possible and God can bring them to their true des- 
tination. The race is other to God than it could 
be without Christ, and God is other to the race 
than He could be without Christ. That is, Christ 
is the Mediator between God and man. Starting 
from the human side we may say that God is the 
reconciled God, the forgiving God, because man in 
Christ, seeing God as He is, and sin as it is, is the 
penitent man, the believing man, the Christian 
man. Or reversing the order and advancing to the 
ultimate fact that redemption originates with God, 
we may say that man is the penitent and obedient 
man because God in Christ is the reconciling and 
forgiving God. In any thought of atonement and 
redemption we may not lose sight of Christ's vital 
relation either with God or man. His work is one 
of reconciliation, of mediation. But the work origi- 
nates with God. Man could never have produced 
the Christ. God so loved the world that He gave 
his Son. It is therefore the final fact that God is 



THE ATONEMENT. 61 

reconciled to man, and therefore man is reconciled 
to God. 

It is not to be supposed, however, that God has 
been reconciled to the world only eighteen hundred 
years ; that before Christ came He was the God of 
justice and since then has been the God of mercy. 
Strictly speaking, there was never a time when God 
was not reconciled, not having been before, for the 
Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. 
It was in the divine purpose from eternity that 
there should be incarnation and atonement. But 
as manifested or realized in time, from our point 
of view, God's disposition was changed when Christ 
suffered and died. At least, the manifestation of 
God's grace waited for the manifestation of Christ 
and depended on it. Therefore we can say " be- 
fore " and " after " in relation to redemption 
through Christ. But considered either as histori- 
cally manifested, or as eternally purposed, it is true 
that but for Christ God would be forever alienated 
from men. It is on account of Christ that God 
can forgive, on account of Christ that men are not 
left helpless and condemned under the necessities 
of unchangeable law. Humanity with Christ in it 
is propitiated to the divine thought from all eter- 
nity. Not till the propitiation is realized do we 
know that a sufficient reason exists to make it right 
and possible for God to forgive sin. To the world 
before Christ came God was unreconciled, because 
the world had no knowledge of God in Christ. To 
the individual, so long as he knows God only on 



62 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

the side of nature and law, God is unreconciled. 
Not till he sees Christ in his sacrificial love does 
he know that God can and will forgive. The act- 
ual sufferings and death of Christ in history are 
not, however, a mere seeming. A realized is not 
the same as an unrealized purpose. The sacrifice 
of Christ on earth has a real value, and is not fully- 
operative until it is an accomplished fact. The 
complete truth is that the sacrifice of Christ is an 
indispensable condition of the forgiveness of sin. 

It may be said, then, in view of our discussion, 
that the present movement of thought seeks to find 
the union of objective and subjective elements. At 
certain periods the sacrifice of Christ and its re- 
sults towards God were looked on as external to 
men, and almost independent of them. There was 
a definite reality which could be measured and set 
off by itself. At other periods the results in ex- 
perience and faith have been more prominent. 
The Atonement has been thought of as an influence 
working in man, and as having no reality or mean- 
ing apart from that. The mutual relation of the 
great reality of reconciliation and the appropriation 
of faith is coming to be more clearly recognized. 
God in Christ, and Christ in man. " I in them 
and Thou in me, that they may be perfected into 
one." 

It may be thought that the battle was long ago 
decided concerning the extent of atonement, that 
the Atonement is generally believed to be universal 
in extent, not for the elect alone, but for the whole 



THE ATONEMENT. 63 

world, and that no one questions it. But all that 
is involved in its universality has not been accepted. 
Can it be considered universal if a large portion of 
the race know nothing of the historical Christ and 
the redemption that is in Him? The extent of 
atonement resides not so much, it is to be remem- 
bered, in the thing done, in the ample provision 
made, but rather in the personality of Christ. He 
is the universal Person, as we said at the outset. 
His religion, therefore, is the universal, absolute 
religion. There is no salvation in any other. He 
alone is able to bring God and man together. This s 
would seem to lead us to the conclusion that the 
final word concerning destiny is not pronounced 
for any man till he knows Jesus Christ and Him 
crucified. Further consideration of this inference 
will be found in connection with the discussion of 
eschatology. It is mentioned now as bearing on 
the relation of the divine justice to the divine 
mercy. The view has been taken that justice con- 
demns the sinner to death before or until atonement 
is made, and that Christ rescues the sinner from 
his just doom. It has been said, therefore, that 
God must be just, and may be merciful, as if the 
exercise of mercy were not necessary to God in the 
sense in which justice is necessary. But we must 
now conclude that justice does not pronounce its 
final word till God has revealed himself in all his 
intended manifestations of righteousness and love. 
Justice is concerned that every attribute of God 
should be displayed ; is as jealous for the rights of 



64 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

love as for those of holiness. If it is God's very 
nature to love, if it is a desire of his to save men 
from sin, justice sees to it that love is not deprived 
of its rights, and is not hindered in any of its im- 
pulses. We may go so far as to say that it would 
not be just for God to condemn men hopelessly 
when they have not known Him as He really is, 
when they have not known Him in Jesus Christ. 
And it is evidently the intent of God that all men 
should know Him through Christ. The judgment 
does not come till the gospel has been preached to 
all nations. The gospel is preached to a nation, 
not when within certain geographical boundaries it 
has been proclaimed at scattered points, but only 
when in reality all individuals of all the nations 
have known it. 

Atonement, that is, the gospel, is universal, ab- 
solute. It is to be made known to every creature, 
and then cometh the end. To suppose that such 
knowledge of God as reason and conscience give 
is, in reality, the knowledge of God in Christ, is to 
reduce the historical Christ and atonement through 
his sacrifice to an accidental, precarious position. 
There is no evidence whatever that the race is di- 
vided into two great sections, one of which is dealt 
with on the basis of the gospel, and the other on 
the basis of law and natural conscience — one on a 
basis of justice, the other on a basis of grace. As, 
before Christ came, God exercised forbearance for 
the sins of the past and because Christ was coming, 
but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, 



THE ATONEMENT, 65 

so ultimately all the nations and all the genera- 
tions are to be dealt with through Him who tasted 
death for every man. This is admitted in prin- 
ciple, but denied in fact, by those who assume that 
salvation is possible only through Christ, but be- 
lieve that the power of the gospel is felt by those 
and may be availing for those who know nothing 
about it. This reduces God's dealings with men 
to magic, and makes the cross superfluous. It is 
no longer a necessity that Christ should have suf- 
fered and died. The Atonement is only a slightly 
more vivid exhibition of that love and grace which 
are really open to all men apart from the sacrifice 
of Christ. 

It is the function of the Holy Spirit to take the 
things of Christ, and show them unto men. The 
dispensation of the Spirit follows and assumes the 
accomplished work of the historical Christ. Before 
this the Holy Spirit could not be given in his full- 
ness, because Jesus was not yet glorified. All this 
means that the supreme, final, absolute revelation 
of God to men is in the Person and work of Jesus 
Christ ; that, therefore, justice does not pronounce 
the word of destiny till love and mercy have gone 
forth to all those children who are partakers of the 
same flesh and blood of which He took part. If no 
man cometh to the Father but by Christ, we con- 
clude that without Him — and almost as certainly 
we conclude that without the knowledge of Him — 
no man can be brought back to God. Whosoever 
calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 

4 



66 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

How, then, shall they call on Him in whom they 
have not believed, and how shall they believe in 
Him of whom they have not heard ? 

In the Atonement Christ the Son of man brings 
all humanity to God. No member of the race is 
separate from him who thus offers himself. 

In the Atonement God provided redemption for 
the world by realizing his holy love in the eyes of 
all the nations. 

The ultimate fact for every man will be his re- 
lation to Christ, in whom dwelleth all the fullness 
of the Godhead bodily, and who in all things was 
made like unto his brethren. 



IV. 

ESCHATOLOGY. 

A theological professor, having been invited to 
give a course of lectures on Eschatology, declined 
on the ground that he could not separate that sub- 
ject from the rest of his doctrinal system and discuss 
it independently. There is no doctrine, indeed, 
which can be taken out of its relation to other doc- 
trines and remain intelligible. The paradox might 
be maintained that no doctrine should be considered 
until all the other doctrines had been discussed. 
It is especially true of eschatology that correct 
views depend on the conceptions one has, not only 
of the several truths, but of the very character, 
significance, and tendency of the gospel as a whole. 
To some it seems easy to give, and legitimate to 
expect, a direct answer to any question that may 
be asked concerning the final destinies of men. 
When inquiry is made, for instance, as to the time 
within which probation is limited, why cannot any 
one express his opinion in a Yes or No ? But while 
one's affirmative or negative may be all that his 
controversial opponent cares to ascertain, yet the 
reasons which lead to a given conclusion are of the 
utmost importance, for they both interpret and 



68 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

qualify the final answer, even if that answer is 
expressed in a monosyllable. The view which is 
taken of the person of Christ, of atonement, of the 
entire revelation of God in the gospel, must deter- 
mine the views which are to be held concerning the 
age which follows after this earthly period — con- 
cerning the destiny of individuals, nations, the 
human race. It may seem also that an appeal to 
Scripture should be decisive on all the vexed ques- 
tions which have arisen as to the last things. But 
if there were unmistakable declarations in the Bible, 
there would be no vexed questions. Besides, on 
this subject as on all other subjects, Scripture is 
cumulative and progressive along the line of devel- 
oping principles, so that the triumphs and judg- 
ments of the future must be seen in the perspec- 
tive of the whole revelation God has given in 
Jesus Christ. Christianity must be understood 
profoundly if a comprehensive view is to be gained 
of the ultimate issues of human destiny under the 
gospel. It is our intention, however, to keep our 
reasoning well within the recognized teaching of 
the New Testament, and to consider, so far as may 
be necessary, particular passages which are claimed 
to be decisive of controverted points. Our method 
is to recognize first some of the great facts and 
principles of the gospel which must underlie any 
conclusions on this subject, leaving for the sequel 
some discussion of a single related question about 
which agreement is not at present complete. 

Two observations may be offered by way of pref- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 69 

ace : one, that we are moving in the realm, not of 
accomplished history, but of unfulfilled prophecy. 
The statements of Scripture which relate to judg- 
ment and heaven and hell are predictive, and 
therefore have the characteristics of prophetic teach- 
ing. We find grand outline, dependence of results 
on moral conditions, great spiritual contrasts, rather 
than minute details of time and circumstance. 
The future is not, however, all vague and undiscern- 
ible. But, since the teaching is prophetic, we know 
where we may and where we may not look for cer- 
tainty : we may be more certain of principles than 
of the particular application of principles. For 
instance, we know that the redeemed are to be for- 
ever with Christ, but we do not know what that 
union will involve of condition and service. The 
other observation is, that these predictions are 
chiefly occupied with the coming triumphs of the 
gospel. The wicked are, indeed, frequently warned 
of their danger ; but when thought is directed on- 
wards it is almost invariably for the purpose of 
giving assurance that the kingdom of Christ will 
reach at length a glorious consummation. The 
condemnation of the wicked is sometimes repre- 
sented as part of that triumph and incident fo> it. 
The dark fate of the wicked is but the shadow 
cast by the brightness of the glory. There is ac- 
cordingly a clearer disclosure of the blessedness of 
the redeemed and the victories of the gospel than 
of the condition of the lost. The kingdom of re- 
demption is not a point of light in the midst of sur- 



70 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

rounding darkness, but the wicked are a point of 
darkness in the midst of surrounding light. Even 
so severe a thinker as Professor Shedd concludes 
that the bottomless pit is an insignificant hole to 
which the refuse of mankind is consigned. 1 

It is important to learn first if there are any 
central facts or principles from which we can pro- 
ceed in the attempt to reach sound conclusions. 

A. The Fact and the Principle of Judg- 
ment. 

1. The Fact. Predictions of the future carry 
us on to the day of judgment as the time when the 
consummation of the gospel will be accomplished. 
Then the destiny of all men will be irrevocably 
fixed. It will be the final crisis for the human 
race. Whatever may be the decisive point in time 
for individuals, this is unquestionably represented 
as the crisis for humanity as a whole under the 
gospel. The first advent of Christ was unto sal- 
vation. The second advent is unto judgment and 
victory. After that time the kingdom of right- 
eousness will be undisturbed by oppositions of evil. 
Until that time men will be translated from the 
kingdom of sin into the kingdom of Christ. After 
the judgment there is no reversal of conditions, but 
only the fulfillment of that which is already deter- 
mined. 

1 " Hell is only a corner of the universe. The Gothic 
etymon denotes a covered-up hole. In Scripture hell is a ' pit/ 
a ' lake;' not an ' ocean.' It is ' bottomless,' but not bound- 
less." — North American Review, February, 1885, page 170. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 71 

The time of judgment is left uncertain. The 
gospel must first be preached to the nations, and, 
therefore, as was observed in the preceding discus- 
sion concerning atonement, not at scattered points 
within each geographical empire, but in reality to 
all people. We need not take space here to delin- 
eate the intervening advances of Christianity on 
earth, with regard to which prediction is not want- 
ing in the New Testament. Neither do we linger 
to indicate the conditions under which the redeemed 
after judgment will come to perfection. We are 
now emphasizing the fact, as one of the most evi- 
dent in the Scriptural teaching, that the day of 
judgment — the second coming of Christ — is the 
final and supreme crisis for the human race. 

The purposes, of our present discussion do not re- 
quire us to consider the belief in universal resto- 
ration nor the belief in conditional immortality, 
although we are of course aware that a complete 
treatment of eschatology would include the consid- 
eration of those opinions. Our object at present, 
as interpreters of progressive orthodoxy, is to in- 
quire what opinion is to be maintained by those 
who do not believe that all men will be finally re- 
deemed, and who do not discover any Biblical war- 
rant for the expectation that any one endowed with 
rational and spiritual powers will cease to exist. 
Scripture predicts, then, as a great fact to be re- 
alized in the future, that there is to be a day of 
judgment, when there will be a final separation of 
the righteous from the wicked. 



72 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

2. The Principle of Judgment. In another re- 
spect the predictions of Scripture are unmistakable. 
It is clear that Christ is to be the judge. Christ 
is to be on the judgment seat. Again and again 
this is plainly declared. The Son of Man is to be 
judge of the world. The Father hath given him 
authority to execute judgment because he is the 
Son of Man. When the Son of Man shall come 
in his glory all nations shall be gathered before 
Him. That judgment is to be rendered by Christ 
is taken for granted throughout the New Testament 
in many an allusion and assumption, as if every 
one who knows anything of the gospel knows that 
Christ will come to be our judge. Now this means 
more than that in addition to his offices of Re- 
deemer and Master Christ is also appointed Judge. 
It means that all men are to be judged under the 
gospel ; to be judged by their relation to Christ. 
God reveals himself in Christ for the enlightenment 
and redemption of men. This is the clearest, the 
most gracious, the supreme revelation ; and if men 
are judged by Christ, they are judged in accord- 
ance with that revelation which He brought to the 
world. They are not to be judged under the light 
of reason and conscience alone, but under the light 
of the gospel of Christ. They are to come before his 
judgment seat, not as those who are dragged there 
forcibly to meet a judge of whose person, character, 
or even existence they know nothing, but as those 
who are brought there as the necessary result of 
the knowledge of God which has been given them 



ESCHATOLOGY. 73 

through Him before whom they stand to be judged. 
When we read that Christ is to be the judge, we 
are to understand that the judgment will be a 
Christian judgment. As one's friendships are a 
disclosure of himself, as what one finds in any em- 
bodiment of beauty or greatness or goodness indi- 
cates what his own perceptions and aspirations are, 
so what one finds in Christ, what Christ means 
and is to him, is the complete revelation of his 
character and deserving. If there is no form nor 
comeliness that those beholding Christ should desire 
Him, this argues no defect nor lack in Christ, but 
blindness and evil in those for whom He has no 
beauty. This principle of judgment in relation to 
Christ is one of the results of the fact that Chris- 
tianity is the universal religion, the final, supreme 
revelation of God to men. Christ, as has been 
shown in preceding discussions, is the universal 
man. He is the Son of Man. His relationship is 
not tribal or national, but human, as comprehen- 
sive as the race. He is the second Adam, the head 
and progenitor of renewed humanity. His invita- 
tions, commands, promises, are in universals. " If 
any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." 
"Whosoever believeth on me shall never die." 
" No man cometh unto the Father but by me." 
He died for the sins of the world. He tasted death 
for every man. The uniform teaching of the New 
Testament is that there is no salvation except in 
Christ. The universality of Christianity is ac- 
cepted to-day as a postulate by nearly all schools 



74 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

of Christian thought. In accordance with this 
teaching of the gospel is the prediction, repeatedly 
made, that Christ is to judge the whole world, all 
the nations, all the dead, small and great. 

It is in consequence of this principle that we be- 
lieve the knowledge of God in Christ to be finally- 
decisive of character and destiny. Whether or not 
any knowledge of God besides that given by the 
gospel is decisive, there can be no question that the 
gospel does determine the destiny of all to whom it 
is made known. There are no higher, no more influ- 
ential motives under which man can be brought to 
God. If Christ does not, no other power can draw 
man to God. Whoever will not believe on Christ 
is incorrigible and hopelessly impenitent. There 
remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, not because 
the divine patience but because the divine resources 
are exhausted. There is no other whom God can 
send to those who will not reverence his Son. 
Therefore a process of judgment is already going 
on. Wherever the gospel is proclaimed, Christ is 
already testing men. Character is becoming fixed 
for good or evil as men yield to his approaches or 
repel them. " He that belie veth not is condemned 
already, because he hath not believed on the only 
begotten Son of God." For this reason the gospel 
is urgent with men. It gives them no promise of 
to-morrow. Its word is Now. Repent now. Be- 
lieve now. This is the day of grace, because God 
is revealed in Christ, and now you are moved to 
repent of sin and believe in Christ. The urgency 



ESCHATOLOGY. 75 

is not in view of the fact that death may come 
suddenly, though that is a solemn consideration, 
but rather in view of the fact that to-morrow there 
may be no inclination to respond to the love of 
God which is offered in Christ, and which to-day 
is neglected or rejected. " To-day if ye will hear 
his voice harden not your hearts" The fathers in 
the wilderness were not destroyed at once. Forty 
years long did God deal with them, but in vain. 
" Behold now is the acceptable time." Thus it 
may be that the destiny of some is irreversibly de- 
termined long before they die. That is a decisive 
point whenever Christ is presented and there is an 
inclination to receive and obey Him. When ac- 
ceptance of Him is real the believer is saved for- 
ever from sin. When rejection of Him is final, so 
that there is no further possibility that Christ will 
win response, there is no remaining hope of deliv- 
erance and purification from sin. It is, therefore, 
a legitimate and almost necessary conclusion that 
the destiny of all men to whom the gospel is given 
in this earthly life is decided while they are in the 
body. The apostle, addressing those who in this 
earthly tabernacle already know Christ, reminds 
them of the time approaching when they will be 
made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, 
that each one may receive the things done in the 
body. He implies that the earthly life is decisive 
for those to whom he was writing, although he was 
thinking of the fidelity rather than the salvation of 
believers. There is much reason also, in the nature 



76 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

of the case, to believe that this present life is the 
most favorable opportunity for moral renewal in 
Christ. 1 The gospel is an earthly, historical relig- 
ion, wrought out in the deeds and sacrifices of the 
man Christ Jesus, who lived under the conditions 
of a human, earthly life, who dwelt in the cities and 
villages of Judea, who walked in the valleys and on 
the mountains of Galilee, and who died on a hill- 
side of this earth. Our bodily life is the accept- 
able time to be saved by Him who in the days of 
his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with 
strong crying and tears. 

At this point the discussion might terminate. 
The principle of judgment in accordance with which 
the destinies of men are determined we believe to 
be that which has now been defined. As to the 
condition of those who are finally condemned the 
Bible gives only obscure hints and vague imagery, 
and we certainly have no heart to speculate on either 
the surroundings or the feelings of the lost. As 
to the condition of the redeemed, we believe that 

1 The words " also, in the nature of the ease " have been 
inserted in the sentence as it was first printed in the Andover 
Review. The meaning without this clause is apparent as ex- 
plained by what immediately follows. But either through 
misunderstanding or for some other reason the sentence has 
been detached from its connection and satirized by some writ- . 
ers as if we had no stronger word to say even concerning 
those to whom the gospel is preached in this life. The close 
of the paragraph is merely a secondary consideration, in ad- 
dition to the urgent motives to repentance already mentioned 
in the very same paragraph. 



ESCHATOLOGY. 77 

they are with Christ and share his glory, probably 
with more fullness after the day of judgment than 
during the period between death and judgment. 
But our present discussion, as we have already in- 
dicated, does not require detailed inquiry concern- 
ing the blessedness of the saved. We could stop 
here, but for a related question which has long per- 
plexed and disturbed believers. It is a question as 
to the judgment and the destiny of those to whom 
the gospel is not made known while they are in 
the body. We must continue the discussion, then, 
in order to consider, as it may seem to deserve, 
this difficult question. It is, in our opinion, to be 
looked on as an appended inquiry, rather than as 
an essential question for theology. Still it is not 
wanting either in practical or speculative impor- 
tance, and, at any rate, is at present much in dis- 
pute. 

B. A Related Question. 

What is the fate of those millions to whom Christ 
is not made known, in this life, and of those gener- 
ations who lived before the advent of Christ ? 

This may, perhaps, be only a temporary question. 
The time may come, we think will come, when all 
will hear the messages of the gospel during the 
earthly lifetime, and will know the gospel so thor- 
oughly that knowledge and corresponding oppor- 
tunity will be decisive. Then there will be less 
occasion for perplexity, as there will be no appar- 
ent exclusion from those opportunities which at 
present are given to only part of the great human 
family. 



78 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

The question we have raised is not new. Nor 
are any of the proposed answers new, although 
some of the reasoning is the outcome of a more 
profound thought of the gospel than has been 
gained in preceding periods. An instructive les- 
son for impressing the difficulty of our inquiry is 
a history of the various opinions which have been 
held during the Christian centuries by honored 
leaders and revered saints ; such an historical 
sketch, for example, as Dean Plumptre gives in his 
recent book entitled " The Spirits in Prison." No 
answer which has yet been given is entirely free 
from objections. Every one, unless he declines to 
accept any solution, has an alternative before him, 
and must rest in that conclusion which seems to 
him most nearly in accordance with the large mean- 
ing of the gospel, and which is exposed to the few- 
est serious objections. Certainly any one should 
be slow to condemn those whose opinions on this 
vexed subject do not agree with his own hypothe- 
sis. There is no explicit revelation as to the des- 
tiny of those who on earth have had no knowledge 
of Christ. Therefore any inference that is drawn 
from the doctrines of the gospel, and from the in- 
terpretation of incidental allusions of Scripture, 
must be held with confession of some remaining 
ignorance on the part of the reasoner. The theory 
which we shall advance presently is offered under 
these conditions. 

The answers which have thus far been proposed 
may be reduced to three, the first of which is held 



ESCHATOLOGY. 79 

by only a few, while current opinion is for the most 
part divided between the other two. 1 

1. The first theory is that the heathen are hope- 
lessly lost unless they have the gospel in its historic 
form during their life on earth. This is maintained 
both from fact and from supposed necessity. It 
being assumed that there is no opportunity of re- 
pentance after death, facts are pointed to as con- 
clusive, for as matter of notorious knowledge the 
heathen are universally corrupt, and die in their 
sins. Thus Professor Kellogg, in his article on 
Future Probation, printed in the "Presbyterian 
Review " for April last, distinctly says : " Whether 
this be true " (that the Spirit of God may renew 
the hearts of men who have never heard of Christ), 
" we greatly doubt ; never among the heathen have 
we ever met or heard of one meeting any person 
who gave evidence of being born again before that 
they had heard the gospel." The final condemna- 
tion of all heathen is also argued as of necessity. 
The argument may be reduced to this form : there 
is no salvation except through Christ ; the heathen 
have no knowledge of Christ ; therefore the heathen 
are to be cast into hell. Thus the article which we 
have just quoted contains also the following decla- 
ration : " The plain teaching of the Holy Scrip- 

1 The opinion that this question presents insuperable diffi- 
culty, and that we may trust the wise and merciful God to do 
what is right, presents, of course, no answer to be considered, 
since it is only a confession of ignorance. In the last section 
of the book the agnostic position is briefly noticed. 



80 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

tures is that while the heathen have not from the 
light of nature light enough to save them, they do 
have enough to condemn them." That is, if the 
language means what it says, it is impossible for 
any of the heathen to escape from a sinful state, 
but nevertheless they all are condemned to ever- 
lasting woe, on account of their sins. They need 
not have been as sinful as they are, although they 
must have been sinful in their essential character, 
and for this additional sin, which even with the 
light they have they might have avoided, they are 
lost for ever and ever. 

This theory is a terrible impeachment of the di- 
vine goodness, not to say justice. Is it like God 
to deal thus with men ? Will He leave them in 
their sins, without any possible means of salvation ? 
The most inconsequent reasoning which leads to 
some other conclusion is preferable to the inexor- 
able logic, if it be logic, which pushes on to this 
heartless, unchristian view. We do not wonder 
that the writer we have quoted falls back on the 
sovereignty of God. He argues that it is incom- 
prehensible to us why the offers of grace are with- 
held from a large portion of the race. God has 
mercy on whom He will have mercy, and we have 
no right to interpose our curious inquiries. But 
the very question at issue is precisely this, whether 
God does withhold the offers of grace from any of 
his wandering children. It is not denied that the 
heathen are wicked and blameworthy, that they are 
much worse than they need to be, that they are 



ESCHATOLOGY. 81 

guilty before God to a very large degree, that the 
displeasure of God is upon them, but it is denied 
that God condemns men eternally for being in a 
state of sin from which they have no power of es- 
cape. Missions can no longer be inspired by a 
motive springing from such considerations. The 
heathen, it used to be said, are hopelessly lost un- 
less they have the gospel before they die. This 
awful impeachment of the God of grace, who so 
loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son 
for its salvation, cannot be sustained. This cannot 
be the whole truth. We must find some other 
answer, or at least must conclude that we are in 
possession of only part of the facts. There is 
enough to inspire missions without resorting to a 
motive which is contrary to our best conceptions of 
God, and is opposed to the Christian sentiment 
which is the outgrowth of the gospel. We can- 
not trust ourselves to characterize a theory which 
would consign millions of mankind to everlasting 
woe only for fear that some triflers in Christian 
lands should fancy they could defer till after death 
their repenting and believing. It is enough to 
say that this theory is fast disappearing from all 
branches of the Christian church, although the ar- 
ticle we have referred to is given a place in a Pres- 
byterian quarterly, and is indorsed with unqualified 
approbation in the columns of a Congregational 
review. 1 We do not believe that the editors of the 
" Presbyterian Review " could agree in accepting, 
1 Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1885, pp. 573-575. 



82 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

nor that clergymen of the Presbyterian Church 
could concur in maintaining the view that " while 
the heathen have not from the light of nature light 
enough to save them, they do have enough to con- 
demn them." This theory is only a restatement of 
the doctrine of arbitrary election and reprobation. 

We turn, then, to the theories which remain, and 
which find a larger number of adherents. One of 
these theories is that salvation is possible without 
any knowledge of the gospel, and yet by reason of 
the gospel ; the other, that saving knowledge of the 
gospel may be given after death to those who in 
this life do not obtain it. 

2. The former of these theories, and the theory 
which is the second answer we are to consider, 
while not destitute of support, is obliged to confront 
some serious objections, practical as well as theo- 
retical. And if, as we shall find, it covers only 
exceptional cases, the grave problem remains un- 
solved. The theory attempts to guard the beliefs 
that salvation is possible without knowledge of the 
gospel, and that it is thus possible during the 
earthly life. In addition, it is maintained by some 
that this salvation, although obtained without knowl- 
edge of the gospel, is essentially by means of the 
gospel. We must take space and patience to as- 
certain how much this theory accomplishes towards 
a satisfactory explanation of the difficulty before 
which it stands. 

Appeal is taken to facts. A few exceptional 
individuals, scattered among the mass of heathen, 



ESCHATOLOGY. 83 

seem to show that salvation is possible without 
knowledge of the gospel. Socrates, Cato, Aure- 
lius, Buddha, and others seem to have had the 
characteristics of Christians. A pure and lofty 
personage is occasionally found among the unchris- 
tian peoples to-day who, we cannot help thinking, 
is accepted of God. Such facts Scripture confirms, 
it is maintained. In every nation, says the apostle 
Peter, he that feareth God and worketh righteous- 
ness is acceptable to Him. The account of judg- 
ment given by Matthew leaves the impression that 
some, because they were humane and benevolent, 
are saved, although they did not know their service 
was really to Christ. Also, it is argued, and with 
justice, before the time of Christ, Abraham and 
multitudes of his descendants were saved by faith, 
and, of course, without knowledge of Christ. These 
considerations would seem to establish the possibil- 
ity of salvation without knowledge of the gospel, 
and to show that the workings of God's grace are 
not limited to the revelation made in Christ. 

It should not be forgotten, however, that these 
are exceptional cases. The possibility of salvation 
under these conditions seldom becomes reality. 
The vast majority of the heathen die in sin. Paul, 
as Professor Kellogg clearly shows, does not ad- 
mit the exceptions, but declares that all the heathen 
are under condemnation. The great apostle admits 
that if they were righteous they would be approved 
of God, but is careful to state that as matter of 
fact they are not obedient ; that all have sinned and 



84 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

come short of the glory of God. It has also been 
held very generally that the exceptional personages, 
if there are any, are probably brought after death 
to knowledge of Christ. Socrates, it has often 
been said, would have been a Christian if he had 
known of Christ. It has been supposed that the 
exceptional virtuous characters were peculiarly re- 
ceptive of Christ, and probably after death had for 
their completion the knowledge which was lacking 
while they were on earth. Plato has often been 
represented as meeting Christ and worshiping Him 
in the world of spirits. The view, when it is thus 
enlarged, seems to be that some at death are still 
capable of redemption, and that they will not fail 
of it, but will have the knowledge which is nec- 
essary to salvation, a view not essentially unlike 
that which will be presently considered. A great 
multitude not so blameless as Socrates and Buddha 
may still be capable of redemption, as, indeed, 
proves to be the case when the gospel is preached 
to them during the earthly life. If it is main- 
tained that the number of those who are accepted 
of God is not small, but that there are many vota- 
ries of religion seeking earnestly towards God ac- 
cording to the light they have, and who constitute 
a better element in every nation, what is really be- 
lieved is that they are on the way to clearer knowl- 
edge, and that they will know God in Jesus Christ. 
It is not held that no more is necessary and that 
they will have no further knowledge, but that they 
will be saved, in the true meaning of salvation, 



ESCHATOLOGY. 85 

through the knowledge of Christ. That knowl- 
edge, in the nature of the case, will be given after 
they die. 

As to Abraham and his descendants, the instance 
is clearly exceptional. They had more than the 
light of nature. They had a special revelation 
from God concerning his righteousness and mercy. 
They knew of redemption on condition of penitence 
and faith. Their knowledge of God, although ob- 
scure, was in many respects the knowledge given 
afterwards more fully by Christ. And, while their 
salvation proves that knowledge of the historic 
Christ was not absolutely necessary, still they were 
recipients of that which was preparatory to the gos- 
pel and directly predictive of it. And, besides, it 
has always been believed that for the completeness 
of their redemption they had clearer knowledge, 
after death, of God's love revealed in Christ. It 
has even been held by some that the patriarchs and 
prophets waited for their full salvation until Christ 
had actually appeared on earth to realize the love 
of God to mankind, somewhat as the early martyrs 
are represented in the Apocalypse as waiting and 
praying for the triumphs of the Redeemer, without 
which they could not be satisfied. It is, indeed, 
declared that those who were saved under the old 
covenant received not the promise, God having pro- 
vided some better thing for us, that they apart 
from us (of the new covenant) should not be made 
perfect. The instances cited, then, are exceptional 
— a few virtuous heathen, and they, perhaps, only 



86 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

receptive of salvation but not actually regenerate, 
and the Jews who were under a special revelation 
which was preparatory to Christ, and which the 
heathen world did not share. To show that there 
are many who would accept Christ if they knew 
him is not to show that they are saved by the light 
of nature, but would rather go far to establish the 
opinion that they will know Christ after they die. 
From exceptions it is not satisfactory to argue to 
general conclusions. The practical difficulty re- 
mains, after all exceptions are admitted, that the 
light of nature does not suffice for salvation in any 
comparison with the light of the gospel ; that the 
religions of the world, in the very broadest view, 
must be looked on only as preparatory to the gos- 
v pel ; that as matter of fact the heathen die in their 
sins, condemned indeed for much sin they might 
have avoided, but yet practically without the means 
of salvation from a sinful state. If this possibility, 
so seldom realized, is a satisfactory solution of the 
dark problem, it will, of course, be admitted that 
their probation is limited to this life. If this is all 
that God in his love and righteousness does for 
a large and thus far the vastly larger portion of 
the race and yet gives the gospel to others, then, 
certainly, he offers to them all he has to offer while 
they are in the body. In apparent inconsistency 
with this view, its advocates are sometimes heard 
saying that God will do all that can be done for 
the salvation of every one of his children. 

For practical purposes this explanation is not 



ESCHATOLOGY. 87 

much better than that which preceded it. Accord- 
ing to either view, the immense majority of men 
die in their sins without hope of salvation. The 
only advantage of the theory that salvation is pos- 
sible under the light of nature is that it is not 
quite as difficult to vindicate the divine justice in 
condemning those who are disobedient. But the 
ground gained is scarcely appreciable, and, besides, 
we have reason to believe that God's dealings with 
men will vindicate his goodness and mercy as w r ell 
as his strict justice. Indeed, justice, as was pointed 
out in the discussion of the Atonement, is the guard- 
ian of all the attributes, and therefore does not pro- 
nounce the first, but rather the final, word. 

But this theory is still further attenuated to mean 
that the knowledge under which it is possible for 
men to be saved who never hear of Christ is " es- 
sentially " knowledge of the gospel. There is no 
essential difference, it is said, between the knowl- 
edge of duty and therefore of God, which reason 
and conscience give, and the knowledge of duty 
and of God which the gospel gives. It is argued 
that the mutual relations of men in society make 
obligatory the law of love to man, and inferen- 
tially of love to God, and that the gospel gives no 
other law, even if it enunciates that law more 
clearly ; that therefore conscientious heathen, liv- 
ing up to the knowledge they have, are actually 
saved through Christ and his atonement, although 
they have no knowledge of the actual Christ, nor 
of his sacrifice for the sins of the world. 



88 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Now, this reasoning, if it may so be called, is 
evidently resorted to in order to make the theory 
agree with the accepted view that salvation from 
sin and reconciliation to God are possible only 
through Christ. It is indeed true, but that is not 
what this explanation means, that God's relation to 
the entire race in all the generations is other than 
it would be but for Christ. A race into which 
Christ is incorporated is not dealt with by God as 
it would be otherwise. Thus, while the work of 
Christ was not as yet accomplished, God exercised 
forbearance for the sins of the past. It is also true 
that the great religions are suited to prepare the 
way for Christianity in some such sense as Juda- 
ism was related to the gospel. God, we believe, is 
educating all the nations towards the gospel. But 
the theory we are considering is of quite another 
sort. It is that the knowledge gained by reason 
and conscience is practically equivalent to the 
knowledge gained through the gospel ; not as clear, 
but the same ; less advantageous, but really identi- 
cal. It is true enough that Christianity is har- 
monious with reason, and commends itself to the 
rational and moral convictions. It is also certain 
that so much truth concerning God as reason can 
discover is an essential part of Christianity. But 
because the less is part of the greater it is not 
therefore essentially the same. Christianity is a 
source of knowledge concerning God which is not 
given by the external universe nor by the constitu- 
tion of man, but only by Christ. Because reason 



ESCHATOLOGY. 89 

comprehends this larger revelation when it is given, 
it does not follow that reason is capable of discov- 
ering unaided the truths which are made known 
only in the gospel of Christ. This extension of the 
theory we decidedly oppose. From its premises 
some of the most mischievous and dangerous op- 
positions to Christ have proceeded. It certainly 
has no special claim as being sound and orthodox. 
We consider it unevangelical and rationalistic, for 
it disparages the importance and denies the neces- 
sity of historical Christianity. It is perilously 
akin, in its postulates, to the Deism of the last cen- 
tury, which maintained that the knowledge of rea- 
son and the commands of conscience are sufficient, 
and which held Christianity to be not a supernat- 
ural redemption, but only a superior system of 
moral teaching. If the knowledge of the heathen 
is essentially Christianity, then Christianity, essen- 
tially, is little more than the knowledge of right 
and wrong, and all that men need is a clear knowl- 
edge of that which is morally obligatory. But 
Christianity is both superior and distinctive. The 
gospel not only admits, but assumes and insists 
that men know the difference between right and 
wrong. The ethical teaching of Christianity, there- 
fore, is not unlike other codes of ethics, except as 
it is more clearly and comprehensively enunciated, 
and more beautifully exemplified in the life of 
Jesus. What men lack is not the knowledge, but 
the power of goodness. The gospel comes to men 
who know the right but are in bondage under sin 



90 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY 

and exposed to the necessary consequences ; and it 
is a power of deliverance from sin, the power of a 
new life. The gospel, therefore, is not so much 
something taught as something done; a great di- 
vine work wrought out in actual history, under the 
knowledge and power of which men are brought 
into a new and holy life. Christianity is not an 
ethics, but a redemption. It is not man seeking 
God by the obscure light of reason and the prompt- 
ings of conscience, which is the search of men in all 
the idolatries of heathendom, but it is God seek- 
ing man in the person and atoning work of Jesus 
Christ, his only Son our Lord. Jesus said to Nic- 
odemus that the need of moral renewal is well 
known without a revelation, that it is a thing of 
earthly knowledge. But man could never know 
by reason or conscience the heavenly thing that 
God so loved the world as to give his only begotten 
Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life. That God real- 
izes his love in Jesus Christ, and energizes through 
Him for the redemption of sinners, is the gospel, 
and this is not " essentially " the same as the grop- 
ing of men after God, who has not so revealed him- 
self unto them. This dangerous theory puts the 
gospel on a level with other religions, and gives it 
a precarious position. Reduced to a syllogism, the 
theory may be summarized thus : Men cannot be 
saved except through Christ and his gospel ; men 
can be saved who never heard of Christ and his 
gospel ; therefore, the knowledge men have by na- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 91 

ture is really the gospel of which they never heard. 
The major premiss is almost universally accepted. 
It is Professor Kellogg's postulate, and it is also 
ours. But the proposition which has been slipped 
in under the guise of a minor premiss is really a 
flat contradiction of the major, while the conclusion 
is far out on the road in company with forms of 
unbelief which were long ago driven out in defeat 
and shame. 

Has it come to this, that within evangelical cir- 
cles the battle must be fought again on the old 
issue between natural and revealed religion ? Must 
our brethren, " whom we love while we deplore 
their error," again be held back from accepting 
the opinion that Christianity is only a system of 
moral teaching ? Evidently the theory, in this 
form of it, is open to serious objection, since it 
threatens to undermine the foundations of the gos- 
pel, by ignoring its distinctive character as a re- 
demption from sin. 

Apart also from the tendency of this rationalistic 
theory to reduce Christianity from its unique posi- 
tion, the practical result apparently would be to 
" cut the nerve of missions," for the theory is, first, 
that the heathen can be saved without the gospel, 
and, second, that they already have the gospel, — 
essentially. Therefore, while it may be desirable 
and commendable to send the gospel with its clearer 
light, no imperative necessity is laid on the church 
to proclaim Christ to the heathen. 

We think it will be admitted that no one would 



92 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

dream of saying that the heathen have the gospel 
in any real sense unless he must think so in order 
to escape some other conclusion which he has be- 
forehand determined to reject, no matter what vio- 
lence is done to reason, and even to a correct con- 
ception of Christianity, to say nothing of common 
sense. Who, contemplating the heathen on the one 
hand as they really are, and pondering the divine 
and saving significance of the gospel on the other 
hand, believes that in any practical or even intelli- 
gible sense the heathen have the gospel ? It would 
be better to take refuge in a confession of absolute 
ignorance, or tb hide in the ambiguity of " uncov- 
enanted mercies." 

We have dwelt at some length on this theory, 
partly because it is just now somewhat in vogue, 
and also because those who hold it denounce in 
severe terms others who are better satisfied with a 
different explanation. We do not deny liberty to 
any one to entertain this opinion, although it seems 
to us foreign to the most obvious characteristics of 
the gospel, because we admit the problem to be a 
dark and difficult one, at the best ; but we cannot 
refrain from expressing surprise that the adherents . 
of a view which is manifestly open to grave objec- 
tions and serious inconsistencies should be horrified 
at others who do not happen to agree with them in 
reference to a question which has always been per- 
plexing, and to which no answer yet given is en- 
tirely free from objections. 

This theory has little advantage over that first 



ESCHATOLOGY. 93 

noticed. According to that, the heathen must be 
lost. According to this, it has to be admitted that 
the overwhelming majority are lost. A possibility 
which does not rise into any appreciable realiza- 
tion fails to remove the difficulty. When this pos- 
sibility is still further reduced by the attempt to 
prove that it is the gospel in another form, earnest 
inquiry is almost insulted. Such explanation in- 
creases the perplexity which it pretends to relieve. 
We are still confronted by the problem. Is there 
any other hypothesis which affords light ? Can no 
more be said than that God will do what is right, 
and we must leave all in his hands ? Have we no 
reason to expect, in this life, a more definite expla- 
nation ? 

3. The conclusion which most naturally suggests 
itself is that those who do not know of God's love 
in Christ while they are in the body will have 
knowledge of Christ after death. This answer 
certainly has the merit of simplicity and intelligi- 
bleness. If it is true, then every one will have a 
real knowledge of the gospel, and at the day of 
judgment will be approved or condemned in view 
of his acceptance or rejection of Christ, who, either 
before or after death, but before the final judgment, 
had been made known as the Redeemer from sin. 
There would still remain the mystery of that free- 
dom which makes it possible to reject Christ, a 
mystery which remains on any supposition, but 
there would be relief in the thought that no one 
will perish without clear and sufficient knowledge 



94 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

of the Saviour. But the apparent obviousness of 
this conclusion may be a reason for suspecting it. 
And we certainly have to inquire if it does not in- 
volve other difficulties so serious that it is better to 
attempt no solution whatever, but again to confess 
ignorance. 

This theory is opposed for two reasons. It is 
said to be destitute of Scriptural sanction, and to be 
unsafe. We must consider, then, such passages of 
Scripture as relate to our question, and afterwards 
notice what maybe called the prudential objections. 

It is urged that Scripture not only does not sus- 
tain, but that it is clearly opposed to the theory. 
It is to be noted on this point that the passages 
which have a direct bearing are very few, that 
those which are used inf erentially are about equally 
balanced, as many looking one way as the other, 
and that there is wide diversity of opinion concern- 
ing the interpretation of all the passages in question. 
Professor Kellogg may be trusted to have collected 
all the passages which he thinks are decisive as 
against the theory we are now considering. After 
diligent search we can discover only two such pas- 
sages in his article, nor have we ever been able to 
discover others in the New Testament which can 
even be claimed as unequivocal. 

One is the reminder of the apostle to the Corin- 
thians that before the judgment seat of Christ they 
will receive the things done in the body. But this 
passage is limited in its reference to those who 
have heard the gospel, and it is not legitimate to 



ESCHATOLOGY. 95 

stretch it to a universal application. This limita- 
tion has the sanction of eminent scholars, and is ad- 
mitted by some who reject the idea of future pro- 
bation for the heathen. The passage, then, is not 
decisive. Singularly enough Professor Kellogg 
does not use it in that portion of his article which 
deals with our specific question, but in the more 
general discussion of a probation for all men. It 
is worthy of remark that no other passage distinctly 
refers to the bodily life in relation to judgment. 

The only other passage which is claimed as ex- 
plicit and decisive is in the second chapter of Ro- 
mans, where Paul says that as many as have sinned 
without law shall also perish without law. But even 
this statement, direct as it seems, is found in the 
midst of a discussion the aim of which is to show 
that all men have absolute need of the gospel ; 
that for Gentile and Jew alike there is no hope 
apart from the gospel ; that all men by reason of 
their sins are shut up to the gospel ; that the na- 
tions left to themselves would perish ; having not 
the law they would perish notwithstanding, as the 
Jews having the law would perish notwithstanding. 
The apostle was describing the actual present con- 
dition of Gentiles and Jews, to show that there is 
universal need of the gospel. And at the end of 
the same sentence he affirms that all men at last 
are to be judged " according to my gospel by Jesus 
Christ." What is clear is the apostle's teaching 
that there is no salvation except through the gospel 
of Christ. It is not as clear, it is indeed doubtful, 



96 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

if he was thinking of the limits of time within which 
the gospel might be presented. 

We have reached the end so far as passages are 
concerned which are claimed to have immediate 
relation to our inquiry. Every one must judge 
whether these verses, taken separately or together, 
are so unequivocal as to establish the certainty that 
there is no hope for the heathen after death. There 
remain passages which are employed inferentially. 
Some of these look one way and some the other, 
and they are few at the most. 

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not 
in point ; if for no other reason, because Dives and 
his brethren had Moses and the prophets. They 
had the exceptional advantages of the revelation 
made to the Jews. They were not heathen. 

The case of Cornelius is more pertinent, inas- 
much as he was a Gentile, and is said to have been 
acceptable to God before he had the gospel. But 
if not a Jewish proselyte, he was so impressed by 
his knowledge of Judaism that he contributed lib- 
erally for its support. The history of the man is 
related to show how Peter was convinced that the 
gospel would find reception among the Gentiles as 
well as among the Jews. Above all, it was of the 
utmost importance that the gospel should be 
preached to Cornelius, who when he had believed 
on Christ was a very different man from Cornelius 
without Christ. 

Paul's question in the tenth chapter of Romans, 
" How shall they believe in Him of whom they 



ESCHATOLOGY. 97 

have not heard, and how shall they hear without a 
preacher," is appealed to by Professor Kellogg as 
showing that " if the heathen are to be saved, they 
must hear of Christ from the living preacher." He 
argues that Paul was not thinking of " missionary 
work in Hades." Probably not. But can it be 
claimed that Paul was doing more than to state the 
conditions of salvation ? In order to be saved, men 
must have actual knowledge of Christ. Paul's in- 
quiry, " How shall they believe in Him of whom they 
have not heard," at any rate seems fatal to the 
theory of salvation through the essential Christ as 
distinguished from the historical Christ. It is a 
remote inference from his urgency to carry the 
gospel to living men that those who die without 
knowledge of Christ are hopelessly lost. 

A passage which seems to bear strongly on this 
question is that in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, 
" It is appointed unto men once to die, and after 
this the judgment; " but if it means that death, as 
we believe, is a great crisis, it seems to mean also 
that judgment is the other great crisis for every 
man. It is silent concerning the period between 
death and judgment. 

We have now come to the end of passages used 
inferentially as against the theory under consider- 
ation. That there are no more, and that there are 
few also to favor the theory, is what might be ex- 
pected, inasmuch as the Bible is naturally occupied 
with those, and addresses itself to those to whom 
its gospel is given, but does not discuss the con- 



98 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

dition of those to whom it is not given. The Bible 
is practical rather than speculative. 

What, now, are the passages which are thought 
to give encouragement to hope for the heathen ? 

One of these passages is Peter's allusion in the 
third chapter of his epistle to Christ's preaching to 
the spirits in prison. The preponderating conclu- 
sion of scholarship is that Christ appeared in the 
abode of the dead between his crucifixion and res- 
urrection. That his message was other than the 
gospel, least of all that it was an exultant condem- 
nation of the lost, we find it impossible to believe. 
The inference is natural, though not necessary, that 
if Christ preached to the contemporaries of Noah, 
the wickedest of former generations, his gospel is 
also made known to the heathen nations who have 
had even less than the warnings of Noah. The be- 
lief of the ancient church, a belief which has held 
its ground till the present time, that Christ de- 
scended into Hades, is a legitimate inference from 
Peter's teaching, taken in connection with Paul's 
parenthetical question in the fourth chapter of 
Ephesians, " Now this, he ascended, what is it but 
that he also descended into the lower parts of the 
earth? He that descended is the same also that 
ascended far above all the heavens." 

Even more significant is 1 Peter iv. 5, 6 : " Who 
shall give account to him that is ready to judge the 
quick and the dead. For unto this end was the 
gospel preached even to the dead, that they might 
be judged according to men in the flesh, but live ac- 



ESCHATOLOGY. 99 

cording to God in the spirit." Here it is expressly 
taught that, in order to make the judgment uni- 
versal, the gospel was preached to all the dead as 
well as to the living. There is the identical con- 
nection of thought which we have indicated. Judg- 
ment by Christ is preceded by the preaching of 
the gospel to the living and the dead. The passage 
is unequivocal. It can no longer be maintained 
that the dead referred to are the spiritually dead, 
or that any others are meant than all the dead of 
former generations. Both the fifth and the sixth 
verses have the same general application to all the 
dead. And the very object of preaching the gospel 
to them is that they might be judged in the way 
according to which all men are judged in respect 
to the life in the flesh, but might yet in the way 
characteristic of God have opportunity to live in 
the spirit. The interpretation of Professor Kellogg 
that the preaching to the dead was to the martyrs 
who are now dead but who heard the gospel when 
alive is too fanciful to deserve serious consideration. 
Another passage is that in the gospels concern- 
ing the sin against the Holy Ghost, which shall not 
be forgiven, neither in this world nor in that which 
is to come. These words of Jesus do not affirm 
that any sins will be forgiven in the world which 
is to come ; but the inference is natural from his 
solemn declaration that the sin against the Holy 
Ghost cannot be forgiven in the world to come, 
that other sins may be forgiven hereafter. And, 
inasmuch as this sin is generally thought to be no 



100 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

other than the willful rejection of Christ, the in- 
ference is still more natural. It is possible, how- 
ever, that Christ meant only to speak strongly, and 
was employing an "emphasized negative." Pro- 
fessor Kellogg argues that the world to come was, 
in the opinion of the Jews, to begin with the res- 
urrection, and that Christ had no reference to an 
age between death and resurrection, but to an age 
following the intermediate state. If we correctly 
understand this explanation, the inference would 
be that all sins can be forgiven all the way on up 
to the resurrection ; that is, in this age or world ; 
and possibly, except the sin against the Holy Ghost, 
in the period which is ushered in by and follows 
the resurrection. This explanation the professor 
esteems better and more precisely pertinent to the 
present issue than the " emphasized negative " the- 
ory, or the "turning rhetoric into logic "theory. 

Again, if the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon are 
to be condemned to everlasting woe, in what sense 
can their judgment be more tolerable than that of 
Chorazin and Bethsaida ? If Sodom, with the 
knowledge of Christ, would not have been over- 
thrown, and if Tyre and Sidon would have re- 
pented, can we believe that the knowledge of Christ 
will forever be withheld from them ? And is it 
certain that our Lord had in mind more than the 
temporal calamities to which those cities had been 
exposed by reason of their sins ? Was he think- 
ing of the everlasting destiny of all the individuals 
who dwelt in them ? 



ESCHATOLOGY. 101 

In more than one place Christ is spoken of as 
the Lord of the living and the dead, as if his 
power is not absent from the abodes of the dead. 

The only remaining passage is the account in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, where judgment 
is based on humane and benevolent works, — such 
as feeding the hungry and visiting the sick. It 
would seem to favor the second theory, especially 
the form of it which argues for the essential Christ. 
But some suppose that all those there described 
must have had the knowledge of Christ, since they 
at that time know who He is ; others, that their 
surprise is in seeing that many works they had done 
were really for Christ ; others, that saving faith 
expresses itself in conduct ; but Professor Kellogg 
has relieved us from the necessity of explaining 
the passage, for he is positive it is not an account 
of the general judgment, but only of the judgment 
of those who at the time of the second coming of 
Christ will be found living, and that all these will 
have had the gospel preached to them. 

We do not recall any other passages pertinent to 
our inquiry, either directly or indirectly. Infer- 
ences from the resurrection of Lazarus and of the 
widow's son, and from their subsequent opportu- 
nities, have always appeared to us very shadowy. 

In admitting that there are few specific passages 
which relate to the subject, we would not imply that 
Scripture does not strongly support our position, 
but only that few passages are found which make 
explicit statements. But is any teaching of the 



102 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Bible more unmistakable than that the world to 
its every individual is to be judged by Christ, and 
that Christ was offered for the sins of the whole 
world? The Scriptures plainly teach the univer- 
sality of Christ's work in its intent, its application, 
and its consummation. The burden of proof, even 
on the Scriptural side, rests upon those who aver 
that any portion of the race is excluded from the 
privileges of the gospel. It is not incumbent on 
us to quote Scripture which shall show that the 
heathen do have the gospel before they are judged. 
It is incumbent on those who oppose our view to 
quote Scripture which shall show that the heathen 
do not have the gospel before they are judged. 
But even in view of specific passages, although 
they are few, we claim that no one of them is de- 
cisive against the hope which may be entertained 
for the heathen, while there are others, especially 
those in the epistle of Peter, which may fairly be 
claimed to favor that hope. 

The objections which are urged most strenu- 
ously against the hypothesis of future probation 
for the heathen are prudential. The consequences 
of such a hope are held to be dangerous. If it is 
admitted, so the argument runs, that there are any 
who may have opportunity after death, will not the 
hope be encouraged that some in Christian lands 
will also have such opportunity ? Many are ready 
to say that they have not had a fair chance here ; 
and as men are so prone to delay, they will be more 
secure than ever. We do not deny that there is 



ESCHATOLOGY. 103 

force in this consideration. Such misuse might 
be made of the breadth of the gospel. Men defer 
repentance for various insufficient reasons, presum- 
ing too much on the mercy of God, or on the more 
convenient season. But we do not accept this ob- 
jection as conclusive against the theory. It is diffi- 
cult to judge of the usefulness of a particular be- 
lief. No one can tell how many are hardened 
against the gospel because the opinion has been ad- 
vanced that all the heathen are hopelessly lost. 
Perhaps the harm done by encouraging delay would 
be more than offset by the harm done through nar- 
row conceptions of the love of God. It is certain 
that many have been prejudiced against the gospel 
by representations of God which make Him a se- 
vere and tyrannical Sovereign. It is certain that 
conscientious, intelligent men have shrunk from 
identifying themselves with a church and from em- 
bracing a religion whose God leaves the vast ma- 
jority of the race without opportunity of salvation. 
There is danger on both sides, and it is impossible 
to decide on which side it is greater. 

Another prudential objection is that the motive 
of missions is weakened. Urgency to send the 
gospel abroad will be reduced, if it is believed that 
the heathen can be saved after death. We deny 
that this is the main motive of missions. Christ's 
command is explicit and urgent. The glory of his 
kingdom requires the propagation of the gospel. 
But it is a question which has not been sufficiently 
considered, what the effect is likely to be with the 



104 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

heathen themselves, if this or that opinion is held. 
The regard of the heathen in many nations for an- 
cestors is known to be almost their religion. Who 
is prepared to say that it would be safer to tell the 
Chinese and Japanese that there is no hope for any 
of their ancestors, than to admit or even teach that 
in other worlds the same Christ may be offered to 
them who is offered now to their descendants ? 
The gospel is not limited to the Western nations. 
Christianity is to be Asiatic and African, as well 
as European and American. God's dealing with 
the nations which have long been in darkness is 
not determined by the false hopes which some who 
have heard the gospel all their lives may cherish, 
and which they all the time know are not well 
founded. We do not consent to argue the ques- 
tion on prudential grounds. These reasons have 
been mentioned only to show how inconclusive they 
are, and that there is much to be said on both sides 
from any such point of view. 

To escape from a dilemma, it is surmised by 
some that, not after death, but at the moment of 
death, clearer knowledge may be obtained. It is 
urged that at that supreme moment the veil of flesh 
no longer obscures, and a sudden illumination may 
be vouchsafed. Perhaps this is true, though such 
indications as are given do not show that the mind 
is usually active at the moment of dissolution. But 
this hypothesis is open to all the prudential objec- 
tions which are urged against enlightenment after 
death. If it is believed that at death knowledge is 



ESCHATOLOGY. 105 

clearer and motive stronger, men will wait for so 
favorable an opportunity. If the heathen at death 
will or may receive knowledge which they do not 
have before, the urgency of missions is reduced 
quite as surely as if it is thought such knowledge 
will be given after death. This hypothesis also 
lacks the least vestige of Scriptural support. 

Our view is, then, that God will reveal himself 
in Christ to all men. Those who have the gospel 
while they are in the body are in the decisive pe- 
riod. Neither Scripture nor the observed tendency 
of character to become permanently fixed, especially 
under the gospel, afford any reason to hope that a 
more favorable, or, indeed, any opportunity will be 
given after death. But for those who do not know 
God in Christ during the earthly life, it seems to 
us probable that the knowledge they need will be 
given after death. At the same time we are not 
as positive concerning the times, seasons, or cir- 
cumstances under which God will reveal himself in 
Christ, as we are that the principle is of universal 
application : that no man will be finally judged till 
he knows God in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and 
that no man will be hopelessly condemned except 
for the willful and final rejection of Christ. The 
sin against the Holy Ghost, which is thought to be 
that hostility to Christ which makes one incapable 
of redemption, is the only sin for which we are ex- 
plicitly told there is no forgiveness in any world or 
age. 

If it is said that it is useless to present Christ to 



106 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

many of the heathen because they are so corrupt 
that they would not accept Him, it must be replied 
that no one can be sure of that ; that the same 
could be said of many in Christian lands ; that it 
would amount to believing that the gospel is pre- 
sented in earnest only to those who are sure to ac- 
cept it ; and that this view is either Universalism 
on the one side, or the old doctrine of arbitrary 
election and reprobation on the other. Our belief 
is, that somewhere and sometime God will reveal 
himself to every one in the face of Jesus Christ, 
and that the destiny of each and all is determined 
by the personal relation to Christ. If we did not 
believe this, Christianity would no longer be for us 
the universal religion, and the teaching that Christ 
is Son of Man, the universal man, the Head of hu- 
manity, would be robbed of its significance. 

That man even in another world can refuse the 
proffers of grace is in accordance with that freedom 
and responsibility which are always and everywhere 
both the glory and mystery of rational, moral be- 
ing, and which create no greater perplexity of 
thought in the case of the rejection of Christ after 
death than in the case of the rejection of Christ be- 
fore death. 

It is customary to argue from the present ex- 
istence of sin and evil in the world to the probability 
that it may continue forever, and that some may 
be lost who never had even the opportunity of sal- 
vation. How, it is asked, can we reconcile it with 
the goodness of God that He should create a world 



ESCHATOLOGY. 107 

in which sin and suffering should be present for 
ages ? How, then, can we decide any of these dark 
questions from our opinion of what God might be 
expected to do ? We submit that the argument is 
irrelevant. If sin is at length to disappear entirely, 
there would be mental relief, and its existence now 
would not be so mysterious. The temporary pres- 
ence of sin presents no such problem as the ever- 
lasting presence of sin. The argument is one of 
the weakest to bring against the doctrine of universal 
restoration. So if the heathen, at present corrupt 
and ignorant, are at length to be enlightened and 
to have space for repentance, the problem is entirely 
different from that which confronts us on the sup- 
position that from their very birth they are doomed 
to everlasting woe. The existence of sin, which 
cannot be escaped nor overcome, is infinitely more 
perplexing to thought than the existence of sin from 
which redemption is to be made possible. That 
God permits sin at all is indeed mysterious, but 
the mystery darkens if the majority of the race can 
never by any possibility be delivered from it. 

It may be thought by some that the question we 
have been discussing is not of the first importance. 
And it is true that, taken by itself, apart from the 
principles to which it is related, it cannot be con- 
sidered one of the fundamental questions. That 
is to say, one's opinion concerning the opportuni- 
ties of the heathen after death is of secondary con- 
sequence as compared with his opinion concerning 
the Person of Christ and other cardinal doctrines. 



108 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

It is also admitted that on the practical side it 
should not have the prominence of other subjects. 
The preacher of the gospel has little or no occasion 
to argue his opinion publicly. When the gospel is 
actually presented it is urgent for immediate accept- 
ance with those whom it addresses. In preaching 
there is almost no occasion to debate with hearers 
the prospects of those less fortunate than them- 
selves. But the opinion one has on this subject is 
of great consequence, when it is considered as an 
indication of his conception of the gospel of Christ. 
Even the preacher, from whose serious functions 
this apparently speculative question seems remote, 
is affected in the tone, the breadth, the influence 
of his preaching by the thought he has of the ex- 
tent and significance of God's love to men as it is 
revealed in Christ. And for the theologian, indeed 
for every one who ponders deeply God's gracious 
dealings with sinful men, it makes a vast difference 
whether he holds that cruel conception of God 
which means that vast multitudes of his children 
can by no possibility be saved, or that narrow con- 
ception of God which means that the gospel is little 
more than the light of the unaided reason of mis- 
guided men, or that conception of God which recog- 
nizes the universality of the gospel of redemption 
and the supreme significance of the final judgment, 
and which means that God will not withhold from 
any of his children that knowledge and motive 
which alone are able to save them from their sins. 
We do not think it necessary, therefore, to claim 



ESCHATOLOGY. 109 

liberty in holding our opinion as among the opin- 
ions which have been advanced, inasmuch as this 
opinion finds more support than contradiction from 
Scripture, makes the gospel universal in fact, no 
longer leaving that enormous exception which thus 
far includes the large majority of mankind, and 
which restores to its complete value the significance 
of judgment through Christ. We both demand 
liberty to hold it, and decline to admit superior 
orthodoxy on the part of those who hold another 
opinion, which is open to the most serious theoret- 
ical and practical objections. We are unable to 
discover any more piety in representing God as a 
Being who creates millions of men to whom He 
never offers the means of salvation, than in repre- 
senting God as a Being who will bring all men to 
the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

The vital issue of the day, old and yet ever new, 
is an issue beside which the question we have been 
considering seems to be of secondary importance, 
yet with which it is closely related. The real issue 
is between Christianity as a supernatural redemption 
and mere naturalism. Can Christianity be main- 
tained at the point where its adherents place it ? 
Can the doctrine be made good that Christ is a rev- 
elation from God, and the supreme, final, universal 
revelation? Is he more than Jesus of Nazareth, 
the teacher and founder of one religion among 
many religions? Can all the attempts that are 
made to reduce the significance of the Person and 
work of Christ be successfully resisted ? Do we 



110 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

stand on firm ground in passing over from the 
Jesus of history to the Christ of faith? The 
movement of Christian thought with which we 
sympathize signifies, in its deepest meaning, the ex- 
altation of Jesus Christ as the Head of humanity, 
the Son of God, the Redeemer of men, the Medi- 
ator of God to the whole universe. For us He is 
all this, or else He is in no peculiar sense sent of 
God, and we have no gospel of redemption. We 
have accepted one side of the great alternative, with 
all it may involve. We believe Him to be the Re- 
deemer of mankind, the Lord of the living and the 
dead, the effulgence of God's glory, and the very 
image of his substance. As a corollary from this 
belief, we are confident that all members of the 
human family are to know God in Christ. We be- 
lieve that all the more obscure revelations of God, 
and all the religions as truly as the religion of the 
Hebrews, have been an education of the nations 
preparatory to the clear, glorious, and potent reve- 
lation of God in Christ. We believe that the 
Biblical representations of the final judgment by 
Christ and of the triumphant consummation of the 
redemptive kingdom mean that the end is not 
reached till all mankind, the least and the greatest, 
the wisest and the most ignorant, the purest and 
the most depraved, have the knowledge of God's 
amazing love in Jesus Christ our Lord. We should 
be content to expend our toil of thought, our de- 
bate and contention on the great principles of the 
gospel ; to be intent and constant in honoring our 



ESCHATOLOGY. Ill 

divine and human Redeemer and in persuading 
men of the supremacy, authority, efficacy, and uni- 
versality of his gospel of redemption. But since 
the issue has been joined on the question which is 
at present so warmly debated, we are willing to 
meet it at that point, and to go back from the- 
corollary to the principle, from a single application 
to those central truths of Christianity in the light 
of which only can the question receive a sufficient 
and a complete answer. 

The question back of all is as old as the gospel 
itself. It was first asked by our Lord when He in- 
quired, " Who do men say that the Son of Man 
is ? " As of old the answer has been insufficient. 
One of the prophets, an Elijah, a Jeremiah, one 
sent to a favored part, but to only a part of this 
sinful world. The Master's searching question 
comes closer : " But who say ye that I am ? " The 
answer was in the question as He first asked it. 
He is the Son of Man. 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

The mystery, which attaches to the name and 
attends the operations of the Holy Spirit, seems to 
some minds to preclude any attempt to determine 
or even to place his work in its relation to historic 
Christianity. Other minds, we conceive, prefer to 
leave the whole subject in mystery in the supposed 
interest of " the larger hope." The unknown is 
easily made to cover vast possibilities of mercy. 
Given a power like that of the Holy Ghost, and 
who may venture to put any limitations upon the 
divine intercourse with man, the divine incentives 
to his repentance, or the divine forgiveness? Who 
may affirm that God is not at work in some real 
and effective way for the salvation of men irrespec- 
tive of their knowledge of the Atonement ? Nay, 
who can assert that the manifestation of the Spirit 
is not as truly a revelation of God, and there- 
fore as efficacious in human salvation, as the dis- 
closure of his nature and love in the person of Je- 
sus Christ ? What warrant have we for attaching 
supreme importance to the revelation of God in 
Christ? 

These questions, which are presented as they 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 113 

have been offered to us, reveal a tendency on the 
part of some to find in the greatness and mystery 
of the work of the Holy Spirit an equivalent for 
what is known as historic Christianity, thereby 
avoiding the necessity of insisting upon the offer 
of Christ to all men. Many of those who represent 
this tendency would prefer, we are persuaded, to 
leave the matter in its large indefiniteness, but the 
thought naturally seeks definition, and when for- 
mulated it takes some such expression as this. 
Regeneration, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, 
is the moral result and test of salvation. A re- 
generate life is a saved life, because it shows cor- 
respondence with God and likeness to Him in char- 
acter. But regeneration can take place without the 
knowledge of the Atonement. It is enough that 
the Atonement has been made and is known to God. 
The Atonement is the ground on which God can 
consistently work in regenerating men through the 
Holy Spirit. 

Whatever may be thought of the reasonableness 
of this theory, it is evident that it ignores the whole 
effect of Christianity as a motive, and therefore 
raises at once the question : What is the evidence 
that such a work is going on among men indepen- 
dently of the moral force and persuasions of the 
Gospel ? What are the signs of the presence of the 
Holy Spirit in his regenerating power throughout 
heathendom ? Some of those who urge this theory 
have given us their observations upon heathen com- 
munities ; and these observations have been ad- 

8 



114 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

duced to show that character in those communi- 
ties is rapidly attaining final permanence in evil. 
Do the facts of heathendom, with or without this 
conclusion, justify the theory? If they do not, 
what is its practical value ? And on the other 
hand, if the facts of heathendom can be made to 
show a large and sufficient work of the Holy Spirit 
without the knowledge or use of the life and death 
of Christ, what is the ground of Christian mis- 
sions ? Why send the gospel of Jesus Christ to 
those who have the gospel of the Holy Spirit ? 

We have thus far assumed in our interpreta- 
tion of Progressive Orthodoxy, that Christianity — 
x meaning by it the revelation of God in the life and 
death of Christ in their moral and sacrificial power 
— is God's method of salvation for the race. We 
have not discussed, and do not care to discuss, 
the possibilities of salvation apart from the divine 
method. The hope of man is in the power of God. 
We prefer to know where and how God is at work, 
where and how the divine energies are going forth 
in behalf of man according to the divine purpose 
and choice. The Scriptures, as we believe, disclose 
one way, a way sufficient and inclusive. They 
everywhere reveal unity of method in the moral 
government of God. As we have remarked in the 
discussion of the Atonement, " There is no evidence 
whatever that the race is divided into two great 
sections, one of which is dealt with on the basis of 
the gospel, and the other on the basis of law and 
natural conscience — one on a basis of justice, the 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 115 

other on a basis of grace. As, before Christ 
came, God exercised forbearance for the sins of 
the past and because Christ was coming, but now 
commandeth all men everywhere to repent, so ul- 
timately all the nations and all the generations are 
to be dealt with through Him who tasted death for 
every man." 

But unity of method in the salvation of the race 
demands as its working correlate identity of mo- 
tive. We say identity rather than equality of mo- 
tive, for absolute equality would be impossible. So, 
too, we should prefer to say that motives should be 
identical rather than equivalent, because the latter 
term is indefinite and opens endless discussion. 
Identity of motive requires that the influences 
which are employed be drawn from the same source 
and urged by the same agency. Christianity, it is 
acknowledged, has brought in upon the mind of 
man a new and distinct class of facts relating to 
his salvation. But it does not rely upon the bare 
knowledge of these facts for the accomplishment of 
its purpose in the salvation of men. It seeks to 
vitalize them with spiritual power, and make them 
convictive and persuasive. Christianity, we are to 
remember, is more than a religion of ways and 
means : it is a religion of motives. If we accustom 
ourselves to think of the Gospel as a plan or scheme 
we must not overlook the power which gives it vi- 
tality and makes it efficacious. That power is the 
Holy Spirit. Historic Christianity presupposes and 
includes the work of the Holy Spirit, as the work 



116 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

of the Spirit assumes and rests upon the facts of 
historic Christianity. The work of Christ and the 
work of the Spirit are not simply related theolog- 
ical terms ; they stand, in the practical develop- 
ment of God's purposes, in the relation of mutual 
dependence. 

For the sake of distinctness we state our position 
in the following postulates : — 

1. The work of the Holy Spirit, as a work in mo- 
tive, fulfills and makes effective the method of sal- 
vation proposed by Christianity. 

2. Historic Christianity alone offers sufficient 
material in motive, in the life, death, and resurrec- 
tion of our Lord, for the natural and efficacious 
work of the Holy Spirit. 

The Christian conception of man is that of man 
under motives from without working toward his 
salvation. This is, perhaps, the distinguishing 
characteristic of Christianity. All other religions, 
it has been said, represent man as seeking God. 
Christianity alone represents God as seeking man. 
It will be seen that the principle which is here sug- 
gested holds good under the narrowest interpreta- 
tion of the Christian system. Christianity is the 
religion of the divine search, whether there be few 
or many sought after. If we start within the limi- 
tations of an arbitrary election we have a limited 
atonement and a limited work of the Spirit, but 
even here the prominent fact is that of Christ dying 
for the elect and the Spirit working for their sal- 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 117 

vation. Universal atonement comes in to break up 
the narrowness of the scheme, but it retains and 
magnifies the principle. It is still Christ dying for 
men and the Spirit working for their salvation. 
The two go together and are coextensive. A lim- 
ited atonement allows only a limited work of the 
Spirit. A universal atonement necessitates a uni- 
versal work of the Spirit. Method and motive 
are inseparable in the range and scope of their 
action. We emphasize this statement because of 
the tendency of certain minds to rest in the sup- 
posed sufficiency of a universal atonement without 
a corresponding work of the Spirit. The condi- 
tions of the divine grace seem to them to be met 
and fulfilled in the death of Christ, provided it is 
understood that his death was for all. Evidently 
this was not the mind of Christ. Nothing can be 
plainer than the fact of his reliance for the impres- 
sion of his work, including his death, upon the 
power of the Holy Spirit. All his personal expec- 
tations, all his promises, all his plans for his church 
were based upon the bestowal of this power. The 
forty days which followed his death and resurrec- 
tion, days of doubt and perplexity to the disciples, 
and of unbelief with the multitudes, were not be- 
cause of this days of disappointment to Him. Had 
He not assured the disciples of the coming in due 
time of One who should take of his and show it unto 
them, under whose showing whatever had seemed 
dark and inexplicable should become plain and 
bright ? Had He not also assured them that He, 



V 



118 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

who was to make all things clear to them, was to go 
before them and act through them in the convince- 
in en t of the world ? " And He, when He is come, 
will convict the world in respect of sin, and of right- 
eousness, and of judgment : of sin, because they be- 
lieve not on me ; of righteousness, because I go to 
the Father, and ye behold me no more ; of judg- 
ment, because the prince of this world hath been 
judged." It is nowhere affirmed or assumed in the 
Gospels that the world with unaided vision would 
discern the cross, or with untroubled heart would 
seek its reliefs. The cross was yet to be revealed 
to men in the hidings of its power. When the 
excitement of the crucifixion had passed away, and 
the scenes attendant upon it had been forgotten, 
Jerusalem was to be moved afresh and irresistibly. 
Another Presence was to be there, unseen, impalpa- 
ble, but felt, as men feel the wind and fire. Hence 
the calmness of Christ under the postponement of 
results. Hence, also, the tone of assurance and 
triumph which marks his final utterances. The 
closing pages of John's Gospel brighten and glow 
under the expectation of the Spirit beyond the 
pages of the prophets under the hope of the Mes- 
siah. 

In claiming, as we have done, that the Holy 
Spirit in his work represents the place of motive in 
Christianity we do not affirm that his work is irre- 
sistible. Man is his own master under Christianity 
as without. We have no wish to dispute the die- 
turn of a past generation that " God governs mind 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 119 

by motive and not by force." What we wist to 
affirm and maintain is simply the Scriptural posi- 
tion that Christianity is the religion of motive, a 
fact of which the presence of the Holy Spirit is the 
unmistakable sign, and to which his work bears 
perpetual testimony. And we are the more per- 
suaded to insist upon this position because it is so 
often practically denied. We are, for example, 
continually remanded back in present discussions 
to the question — " Shall not the judge of all the 
earth do right ? " — as an easy and final settlement 
of all perplexities. This is a question which Chris- 
tianity takes up and adopts as its own, and at the 
proper time asks with a significance which is deci- 
sive, but it is not the first question which it asks. 
It does not have precedence in the order of time. 
Unless Christianity ignores its very presence in the 
world, unless it denies the facts of its origin and 
history, it must present God working through mo- 
tive before it presents Him sitting in judgment. 
Christianity itself starts the question, to which it 
gives precedence, and in answer to which it invites 
the most earnest thinking, even "high specula- 
tion," — What can the God and Father of men, 
who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, be ex- 
pected to do for his children before He deals with 
them in judgment ? When this question has been 
answered, answered in the spirit and according to 
the logic of Christianity, the answer to the former 
question comes in place, and becomes simple and 
final. 



120 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

In like manner it is beginning to be urged by 
those who see no necessity, in the interest of grace, 
for a Christian opportunity for all men, that any 
lack in opportunity or motive can be made up in 
leniency of judgment : as if the Christian oppor- 
tunity and the Christian motive had their moral 
equivalent in leniency of judgment. An illustra- 
tion will expose the fallacy of this concession. A 
man is arrested for stealing. It is proved upon the 
trial that he was born of a race of thieves, that he 
was trained in bad associations, that he never had 
any wholesome restraints or incentives brought to 
bear upon him. In consideration of these facts 
the judge foregoes the ordinary sentence, and dis- 
charges the prisoner. What is the result ? Simply 
that the man returns to his stealing. The remis- 
sion of sentence has had no moral effect. Indeed, 
in such a case, the waiving of judgment might be 
fairly interpreted to be a confession of previous 
injustice on the part of society. Judgment, at least 
as a finality, has no remedial, no educational, power. 
It produces no ethical result. It leaves character 
as it finds it. By no possibility, therefore, can the 
feebler exercise of judgment be made an equivalent 
for the use of motive. And when we apply the case 
to Christianity and consider the motives which it 
has introduced and the provision which it has made 
for their enforcement, what can we find with which 
to compare it in its power to reach and change the 
human heart ? Where shall we look for the equiv- 
alent of Christianity ? 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 121 

We have stated our belief that Christianity alone 
offers sufficient material in motive for the efficacious 
work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of men. 
We do not deny the presence of motive in the facts 
of nature. Neither do we deny the agency of the 
Spirit of God in the use of these facts. Neither 
do we deny the possibility of direct access on the 
part of God to the heart and conscience of man. 
" There is a spirit in man and the inspiration of 
the Almighty giveth him understanding." We 
gratefully accept all evidences of the wide and va- 
rious work of the Spirit in inspiration. We would 
not belittle such statements of the Old Testament 
as that concerning Bezaleel, that he " was filled with 
the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, 
to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in 
silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set 
them, and in carving of timber." But the position 
of the New Testament is unmistakable in associat- 
ing the work of the Holy Spirit in the salvation of 
men with the work of Christ to the same end. 
What we know as the dispensation of the Spirit 
follows and depends upon the life, death, and res- 
urrection of our Lord. The order is not simply 
that of sequence : it is that of dependence. First 
the revelation of God in Christ, then, and in con- 
sequence, the communication of the life of God 
through the Spirit. " God manifests himself," says 
Van Oosterzee, " in the Son, but communicates his 
life by the Holy Spirit. The Son is the self -reveal- 
ing God ; the Holy Ghost the self -communicating 



122 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

God." This communication of the divine life in its 
freeness and fullness follows a like free and full 
revelation of it. The knowledge of Christ precedes 
and is necessary to the natural work of the Holy 
Spirit. Even the personality of the Spirit awaits 
the personal revelation of Christ. Throughout the 
Old Testament the Spirit appears chiefly as an in- 
fluence ; in the New Testament He is a person. 
And the name by w 7 hich He is there known indi- 
cates his special work. He is invariably the Holy 
Spirit, or the Holy Ghost — a name used but two 
or three times in the Old Testament. Once within 
the pages of the New Testament, we no longer 
read of inspirations like that of Bezaleel. The 
inspirations of the Holy Spirit pertain to the min- 
istry and Person of Christ. " The Comforter, even 
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my 
name, He shall teach you all things, and bring 
to your remembrance all that I said unto you." 
" When the Comforter is come, whom I will send 
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, 
which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear 
witness of me. . . . He shall glorify me : for He 
shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you." 
The offices of the Spirit were to be henceforth asso- 
ciated with sin and redemption. " He will convict 
the world in respect of sin, of righteousness, and of 
judgment." " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithful- 
ness, meekness, temperance." The immediate gifts 
of the Spirit were such as naturally followed the 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 123 

incoming of Christianity and attested its power. 
" To one is given through the Spirit the word of 
wisdom ; and to another the word of knowledge, 
according to the same Spirit ; to another faith, in the 
same Spirit ; and to another gifts of healings, in the 
one Spirit ; and to another workings of miracles ; 
and to another prophecy ; and to another discern- 
ing^ of spirits ; to another divers kinds of tongues ; 
and to another the interpretation of tongues ; but 
all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, di- 
viding to each one severally even as He will." 
And the permanent ministry of the Spirit in the 
soul was to be that of comfort, hope, assurance in 
the gospel of Christ. " The Spirit himself beareth 
witness with our spirit, that we are children of 
God : and if children, then heirs ; heirs of God, and 
joint-heirs with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with 
him, that we may be also glorified with him." Now 
these and kindred passages of the New Testament 

— there are none which are not kindred with these 

— point to the same conclusion. They show the 
relation in time and in effect of the work of the 
Spirit to the revelation of the person and ministry 
and death of Christ. As the coming of Christ in- 
volved the gift of the Spirit, even to the disclosure 
of his personality, the designation of his offices, and 
the assurance of his abiding presence in the world, 
so the gift of the Spirit seems to us to presuppose 
the new facts, the new relationships, the new mo- 
tives, which centre around the Person of Christ. 
We confess, therefore, our utter inability to under- 



124 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

stand the meaning of those who say that " the Holy 
Spirit is the present Christ," or " the essential 
Christ ; " and who, therefore, affirm that every man 
really has an understanding of Christ and a Chris- 
tian opportunity. The terms, as used with this in- 
ference, seem to us absolutely vague and confusing. 
They take away at once the personality of the Holy 
Spirit, and the significance of historic Christian- 
ity. To our minds the New Testament teaches, not 
that the Holy Spirit is a substitute for the personal 
Christ, not that through his general work He makes 
amends for the want of knowledge of the work of 
Christ, but that it is the distinct and glorious office 
of the Spirit to give efficacy to the life and sacrifice 
of Christ, as they are brought into direct and con- 
scious relation to men, and to bear witness in the 
heart, when once Christ has been apprehended by 
faith, to the reality of the Christian experience. 

To be more specific : What is the method of the 
Holy Spirit in the convincement of sin ? Is it not 
through a crucified and rejected Christ ? Is not 
the cross the background upon which the guilt of 
the individual life is thrown out ? And are not the 
standards which Christianity sets up in society the 
very ground and reason for the sense of shame over 
social sins ? What makes the exposure of sin pos- 
sible ? Certainly not the existence of sin, for the 
more common and revolting the forms of sin may 
be, the less meaning can be attached to their ex- 
posure. There can be no exposure of sin in the 
heart of Africa, in many of the islands of the sea, 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 125 

in any of the great centres of heathendom. Ex- 
posure is a relative term, and derives its meaning, 
not from the presence of sin, but from the presence 
of righteousness. Revelation must precede expos- 
ure to make it of avail, to make it possible, — the 
revelation of holiness, of purity, of love. Society 
is startled and aroused under the knowledge of 
great sins, in the form of vices and crimes, in pro- 
portion as it is Christian. Christianity, through 
its revelations of righteousness, brings out those 
mighty contrasts under which men may carry on 
the work of exposure. Any man or organization, 
the press, for example, may expose if the moral 
conditions are present. The Holy Spirit alone can 
reveal that righteousness through which sin be- 
comes shameful, and that love through which the 
sinner becomes a penitent. Very much which passes 
for conviction of sin is not conviction of sin at 
all. There is no spiritual power about it. It is 
simply a natural fear of consequences, immediate 
or remote. It is a conviction of punishment and 
not of sin. Conviction by the cross of Christ is ' 
conviction of sin. The first and deepest thoughts 
which it wakens are not of penalty, but of the ex- 
ceeding sinfulness of sin. The spectacle of a right- 
eous sufferer, the mingling of holiness with love, 
of justice with compassion, which his sufferings ex- 
hibit, impresses the conscience — not the imagi- 
nation, but the conscience — more than the terrors 
of the law. " There is more law," says Dr. Bush- 
nell, " in Christ, in his character and life and doc- 



126 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

trine, than in all statutes besides. . . . The thun- 
ders of Sinai are no match for the silent thunders 
of Calvary." It would greatly simplify our idea 
of the conviction of sin to remember that there can 
be no real conviction of sin without a correspond- 
ing revelation of righteousness ; and, further, that 
righteousness expressing itself in sacrifice is the 
most terrible indictment possible of sin and of the 
sinner. But where can this expression be found 
outside Christianity ? Where in the realm of nat- 
ural law can the Spirit find material in motive fit- 
ted to this most difficult of all tasks — the con- 
vincement of sin ? And is it not in this union of 
a holy sufferer for sin with a holy convincer of sin 
that we have the true solution of the sin against 
the Holy Ghost? Has not the church judged 
rightly in identifying this sin with the persistent 
rejection of Christ against the patient effort of the 
Holy Spirit? Christianity has introduced a new 
classification of sins ; it has created a new species ; 
it points to the unforgiven, the unpardonable sin. 
Where can we look for this save in the shadow 
created by its own light ? 

And if now we turn to the renewing and trans- 
forming work of the Spirit within the soul we find 
the same direct relation to Christ. As before 
Christ was the argument, now He is the pattern. 
The Spirit works toward Christ in the reconstruc- 
tion of character. It is enough to say of his work 
that it is in the endeavor to make men over into 
Christians. The end is actual and manifest like- 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 127 

ness to Christ. Regeneration thus acquires a large 
and an exact meaning under Christianity. We 
would not deny the existence of regenerate life 
outside Christianity; and as respects the Jewish 
economy we admit as much in regard to regenera- 
tion as in regard to atonement. Everything can 
be said of the Old Testament saints except that 
they were Christians. u And these all, having ob- 
tained a good report through faith, received not 
the promise ; God having provided some better 
thing for us that they without us should not be 
made perfect." Our contention at this point is 
that under Christianity the Holy Spirit works in 
human nature toward a higher, a more definite, and 
a more available standard. Conformity to law is 
the despair of the most obedient souls. Likeness 
to Christ is the reverent ambition of the humblest 
disciple. There is that about the relation of Christ 
to men which makes the " imitation " of Him pos- 
sible. He is the head of the race ; we are there- 
fore enjoined to "grow up into him in all things, 
which is the head." He became incarnate ; He 
was made like unto his brethren ; He was tempted 
in all points like as we are ; we are therefore en- 
couraged to appeal to Him for help, assured that 
we shall " find grace to help in every time of need." 
He is the second Adam, the restorer of a lost man- 
hood, through whom we may attain a nobler nature 
and destiny ; we are therefore put in confident ex- 
pectation of the completed work within us. " Be- 
hold, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not 



128 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

yet appear what we shall be, but we know that 
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we 
shall see Him as He is." " And every man," the 
Apostle most significantly adds, "that hath this 
hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 
Where now, we ask, are there facts and assurances 
like these, without the range of Christianity, of 
which the Holy Spirit can take advantage in carry- 
ing on the process of regeneration ? And how 
without these can the process be made definite, real, 
and assuring to the soul of man ? If we say the 
least, we can say no less than that when we pass 
beyond the method of the conscious renewal of the 
spiritual life in Christ we pass at once into what is 
exceptional, vague, and indeterminate. 

We will only specify, in further illustration of 
our position, the renovating work of the Holy Spirit 
in society. As we have already shown, it is the 
work of the Spirit in the revelation of righteous- 
ness — and of righteousness, as we know, and fear, 
and love it in the person of Jesus Christ — which 
makes the common work of the exposure of social 
sins effective, or even possible. But Christianity 
offers more than contrasts. It is more than a back- 
ground for the exhibition of sin. It furnishes the 
direct material for all progress and for all reforms. 
Especially through its new conception and new re- 
quirements concerning man does it work for the 
renovation of society and the elevation of the race. 
Christianity is declaring itself more and more as 
an organic force. It is entering into every rela- 



THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 129 

tion, and diffusing itself through every influence. 
Sometimes it is destructive, and sometimes con- 
structive, in its results. It has, for example, cast 
down slavery and built up truthfulness, and by the 
same principle. " Lie not one to another," says 
the Apostle, " for ye are members one of another," 
— an argument which demands truthfulness from 
man to man ; and equally denies the right of the 
ownership of man in man. In fact, this principle 
of membership of one in another is the great hu- 
man principle through which Christianity wages 
relentless war against all forms of selfishness, 
whether expressed in greed, or indifference, or un- 
truthfulness. The principle is peculiar to Chris- 
tianity, and in the application of it through the 
Spirit God has wrought out the triumphs of the 
Christian centuries. Here, again, we ask, How 
could the Spirit of God develop without the aid of 
Christianity those working principles for the reno- 
vation of society, which men would recognize as 
sufficient, and to which they could surrender them- 
selves with enthusiasm ? Christ has made human- 
ity intelligible to itself. He has done more. He 
has awakened in men the love of man. Nothing 
can separate or alienate anything which is human 
from that which is Christian. Christian missions 
are the witness to the belief of the church in man, 
and to its love for him, as the corollary from its 
belief in Christ and its love for Him. 

We conclude, then, that the work of the Holy 
Spirit is distinctively a Christian work; that it 



130 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

follows in the order of dependence upon the revela- 
tion of God in Christ ; that it draws its argument 
from the Person and work of the Redeemer ; and 
that it proceeds from and toward Christ in the re- 
newal of the life of the individual and in the reno- 
vation of society. 



VI. 

THE CHRISTIAN. 

The question is continually recurring as to the 
legitimacy or propriety of claiming the Christian 
name and affirming the Christian hope for persons 
of exceptional character, irrespective of their Chris- 
tian experience and faith. Some person, Jew or 
Gentile, becomes conspicuous for his virtues or 
charities. In the event of his death the questions 
are quite sure to be put to the Evangelical Church, 
What do you call this man, and, What of his future? 
The reply which is made is always according to the 
dictates of the moral sense. Practically, the Evan- 
gelical Church never denies the courtesy of the 
Christian name or the hospitality of the Christian 
hope to those whose lives illustrate the Christian 
virtues. But theologically these " exceptional cases" 
create no little confusion. The answers which they 
call out are apt to put a strain upon the theological 
systems. 

The most recent discussion in point has been oc- 
casioned by the death of the eminent Jewish phi- 
lanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore. In answer to 
the usual question about the Christian salvation of 
such a man, Dr. A. A. Hodge writes as follows in 
" The Independent " of September 17, 1885 : — 



132 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

" In common with all who maintain the integrity of 
Catholic Christianity, we firmly believe that human nature 
is radically and universally corrupt and guilty before 
God, utterly incapable of self help in the way of expiation, 
of merit, of spiritual renovation. Whenever a human 
being is found, as a matter of fact, to be reconciled to 
God, and by a holy life gives evidence of possessing a 
holy nature, we with perfect confidence attribute the re- 
sult to the application to the person in question of the 
expiating virtue of Christ's sacrifice and of the regener- 
ating power of his Spirit. We believe, therefore, that, 
without exception, the acceptance of each man with God 
depends, not upon any supposed natural goodness or per- 
sonal merit, but wholly upon the fact of the man's per- 
sonal relation to Jesus Christ. . . . The establishment of 
this personal relation to our Lord, so as to constitute one 
a beneficiary of his redemption, is generally conditioned 
upon personal recognition and confession of Him. This 
is even essential whenever intellectually possible. But 
it is not absolutely essential, as is proved in the case of 
those dying in infancy, and of idiots. On like grounds 
of principle it might hold true in the case of some excep- 
tionally enlightened heathen. The charitable formula 
of ' invincible ignorance,' used and greatly abused by 
Romanists, rests ultimately upon a true principle, and 
has always been practically more or less recognized by 
orthodox Christians." 

The whole communication from which this ex- 
tract is taken is thoroughly manly in its tone, and 
is most delightful reading, as a large-hearted inter- 
pretation of the Calvinistic symbols in their bear- 
ing upon the matter at issue. The difficulty of the 



TEE CHRISTIAN, 133 

explanation lies in the construction put upon the 
application of the Atonement. We heartily agree 
with the writer in his assertion of the necessity of 
the Atonement to every human being. We thank 
him for the words, " We believe that, without ex- 
ception, the acceptance of each man with God de- 
pends, not upon any supposed natural goodness or 
personal merit, but wholly upon the fact of the 
man's personal relation to Christ." But when it 
is assumed, as it is throughout this article, that the 
Atonement can be applied to the individual and 
made efficacious in his behalf, apart from any ap- 
preciable influence upon him, without his personal 
acceptance of it, without even his knowledge of the 
fact of an atonement, we draw back from the as- 
sumption as beyond the limits of plain reasoning. 
The assumption carries the Atonement over into 
the secret councils of the Most High. The cross 
might as well have been set up in some other world. 
Historic Christianity becomes a needless expression 
of the divine purpose and method in the salvation 
of men. We have elsewhere characterized this 
kind of salvation, wrought out independently of 
human consciousness, as salvation by magic. 1 It 
seems to us to be closely akin to the arts of Eo- 

1 An editorial writer in The Advance of November 5, 1885, 
makes the following reference to the case in question : 
" Those who maintain this new doctrine " — that of a * Chris- 
tain probation for all souls ' — " are forbidden by it to say as 
the rest of the church says : He " — Sir Moses Montefiore — 
" was saved by Christ because his life was Christlike, though 



134 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

manism. The case of the " exceptionally enlight- 
ened heathen " is compared with that of infants, 
of whom it is said that it is proved that the per- 
sonal recognition and confession of Christ is not 
absolutely essential to entitle them to become ben- 
eficiaries of his redemption. How proved ? The 
Scriptures say nothing of the method of the sal- 
vation of infants. The doctrine of their salvation, 
if the demand be made for specific proof-texts, is 
extra-Scriptural. The doctrine is an inference, le- 
gitimate and necessary, as we believe, but still an 
inference from the Christian conception of God. 
The proof of the inferential character of this belief 
lies in the historic fact that it is only with the 
widening of the conception of God that we have 
the belief in the salvation of all infants. Until we 
reach the Christian conception of God, we have the 
salvation of " elect infants." And in the absence 

he failed to apprehend the historic Christ." " This is in 
their view ' salvation by magic.' " 

No, this is not " salvation by magic " : this is more like 
salvation by merit, or moral character, a kind of salvation 
perfectly plain and intelligible, but not as we had supposed 
the kind accepted and advocated by " the rest of the church." 
The church doctrine of salvation we had assumed to be that 
of justification by faith. Paul and Luther evidently did not 
rely upon personal attainments in character, but upon the 
personal appropriation of the righteousness of Christ. 

What we have characterized as " salvation by magic " is a 
salvation which is presumed to be effected by the Atonement, 
when the Atonement is taken and applied to an individual 
without any consenting or even conscious relation to it on his 
part. Such a process is a pure abstraction on the human side, 
a secret transaction in the councils of the Most High. 



THE CHRISTIAN. 135 

of any direct statements of Scripture in regard to 
the doctrine itself, any variation from the prescribed 
method of salvation is purely speculative. If we 
waive the exercise of moral agency, and ignore the 
necessity of a personal appropriation of Christ, 
what have we left but a kind of baptismal atone- 
ment and baptismal regeneration ? We think it 
more reverent, as it is certainly more reasonable, 
to believe of infants and heathen alike, that accord- 
ing to the development of moral agency they are 
brought into conscious relations to Christ, and that 
according to their needs they are enabled to per- 
sonally appropriate his redemption. We question 
the advantage and the right of modifying the natu- 
ral and reasonable conditions of Christianity under 
the stress of " exceptional cases." Allow Chris- 
tianity to be, what it claims to be, universal in 
its relation to the human race, and the necessity 
for any modification of its conditions is removed. 
Unity of method becomes the ruling principle in 
the moral government of God. We have one 
standard of judgment for all men, one method of 
salvation, one supreme and sufficient motive to re- 
pentance. Divide the moral administration of God 
into the departments of law and grace, and there 
will be the constant endeavor to transfer, by some 
secret process, first the few, then the many, who 
are under the condemnation of law, into the hope 
of grace. Salvation by Christ ceases to be the 
open, plain, real thing it is, and becomes something 
hidden, vague, unverified and unverifiable by the 
human consciousness. 



136 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

But the real question in respect to the Christian 
salvation goes beyond all " exceptional cases." As 
Dr. Curry remarks in the same discussion, " The 
important question respecting this class of cases is 
not whether a devout and pure-minded heathen or 
Jew can be saved, but whether persons of those 
classes are, except in a very few and exceptional 
cases, such in mind and heart ; and granting that 
all such, if such there are, are 4 accepted of God,' 
the case, as one of fact, is not much relieved. . . . 
We may freely admit that, of every nation, even 
Jews and heathens, he that fears God and worketh 
righteousness is acceptable to him, and yet doubt- 
ingly ask respecting all these classes, ' Are there 
few that be saved ? ' " The real and living ques- 
tion, a veritable question of flesh and blood, is not 
that of theological hospitality toward the excep- 
tional life outside Christianity, but rather that of 
the large and active relation of Christianity to 
every life without. The real question is in no sense 
one of hospitality at all, but one rather as to the di- 
vine right of every individual of the human race in 
Christianity. Must the Christian name remain of 
necessity and forever an exclusive name as respects 
the majority of mankind, a designation of privilege 
for the few, rather than of opportunity for all? And 
are the great masses of men in the past generations 
to be simply represented in the kingdom of God by 
here and there a soul who has climbed up some other 
way into the Christian fold, while they are to remain 
in their hopelessness and helplessness ? Whenever 



THE CHRISTIAN. 137 

the question is raised about these " exceptional 
cases " it opens at once into the most serious ques- 
tioning about those cases which are not exceptional 
but representative. And whenever the Atonement 
is introduced as the justification for God's accept- 
ance of the few who may be seeking after Him, if 
haply they may feel after Him and find Him, it 
suggests the part which the Atonement also takes 
in the divine search for man. We accept in its / 
fullest and deepest import the sacrificial theory of 
atonement. But we do not forget that the Chris- 
tian Atonement points two ways and is set forth as 
of equal avail toward God and toward man. To 
the mind of the heathen, atonement represents ex- 
clusively the idea of propitiation. To the mind of 
the Hebrew, it represented the same idea, though 
it became more and more suggestive of the divine 
mercy, so that God was able to make use of the 
idea to give in advance the assurance of his for- 
giveness, saying to his people in their wanderings, 
" Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." In 
the sacrifice of Christ the movement is as strong 
from God to man as from man to God. The 
Atonement carries the message of human penitence 
to God ; it carries the message of the divine love 
to man. It gives God access to the human heart, 
and is the prevailing motive in his struggle with the 
will of man. Christianity is incomplete in idea, 
and partial in application, in so far as this fact is 
not recognized and acknowledged. In other words, 
the knowledge of the Atonement may be the neces- 



138 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

sary condition of the decisive choice of the soul for 
or against God. The knowledge of right and wrong 
may not be the sufficient condition for such a 
choice. If, therefore, in our charity we apply the 
Romish principle of " invincible ignorance " we 
must extend the working of that principle beyond 
the knowledge of right and wrong, to the knowledge 
of Christ and his salvation. 1 

We have approached the subject before us 
through the current discussions about the Chris- 
tian salvation because they indicate the sensitive- 
ness of the Christian mind upon this matter. No 
part of the church cares to insist upon the exclu- 
siveness of the Christian name and hope. It is 
impossible, under the moral sense of our time, to 
maintain the absoluteness of Christianity and its 
exclusiveness ; to affirm that the Christian is the 
only type of man acceptable to God, and deny to 
any man the opportunity to become a Christian. 
As we have seen, the speculation in regard to the 

1 The reach of this principle is indicated by Dr. Hodge in 
these generous words : " It is obvious that there is a world- 
wide distance between an intelligent and malignant rejection 
of the historic Christ, his Person and offices clearly appre- 
hended, which is the damning sin, on the one side, and on 
the other a failure to recognize Him as misapprehended be- 
cause of intellectual bias, or the misrepresenting character of 
the media through which his rays are transmitted. It is cer- 
tain that a man who really rejects Christ rejects the Father 
who sent Him. Hence the converse is true : that the man 
who has truly recognized the Father could not have really re- 
jected Christ." 



THE CHRISTIAN. 139 

Atonement as secretly applied to the "" exception- 
ally enlightened heathen," whatever we may say of 
its value within its own sphere, entirely overlooks 
the moral uses of the Atonement in the enlighten- 
ment of all unenlightened souls. The only con- 
sistent and far-reaching solution of the problem, as 
we think, lies in the principle advocated upon 
these pages. Progressive Orthodoxy matches the 
absoluteness of Christianity with its universality. 
It maintains the Christian type as the only type of 
man acceptable to God, by allowing to every man 
his right in Christianity. It affirms and magnifies 
the Christian Judgment as the one event awaiting 
all men, and under the sense of the certainty of 
that event, with its everlasting issues, it acknowl- 
edges the reasonableness of assuming that every 
man will first have his Christian opportunity, — 
that he will know Christ in his sacrifice before he 
meets Him in judgment. 

Passing, then, to the more definite considera- 
tion of the Christian, we assume that the Christian 
man is the man acceptable to God. The New Tes- 
tament proceeds upon this assumption. Its assur- 
ances and promises, its present benefits and its cer- 
tainties respecting the future, are applicable only 
to the Christian. 

Our first inquiry is, Whence comes the Chris- 
tian ? How do we gain this type of man ? We 
may say of the individual Christian, as we know 
him, that he is the result of a definite religious 
training, or of a definite religious process, which 



140 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

we call conversion. But this does not answer the 
question, Where do we get the type ? The Chris- 
tian was not born under the light of nature. He 
was not developed in the school of law, albeit the 
law was a school-master to lead to Christ. It may 
not be unnecessary to remind ourselves — unfortu- 
nately the saying is not a truism — that the Chris- 
tian is the product of Christianity. The type of 
life which he represents came in with those facts 
and ideas which belong to historic Christianity. 
And the type is perpetuated through the prevalence 
of these facts and the supremacy of these ideas. 
Christianity invariably precedes the Christian, cre- 
ating those conditions, and setting in motion those 
agencies, which need but the cooperation of the in- 
dividual will to produce the required result in 
Christian character. Christianity produces a new 
consciousness in the race, which makes possible the 
Christian consciousness. Man is another being to 
himself in the light of the Incarnation and Res- 
urrection. The Incarnation does not create a new 
value in man ; it does more : it reveals to him his 
real value in the thought of God. The Resurrec- 
tion does not confer immortality upon man ; it 
gives him the moral advantage of immortality ; it 
puts him under the power of the endless life. 
Wherever Christianity goes it speaks to men 
through these facts. And because it speaks through 
facts its language is positive, awakening, and as- 
suring. There is no uncertainty in what Chris- 
tianity says of man or to him. There is no con- 



THE CHRISTIAN. 141 

tradiction in its utterances. The certainties of 
nature are against man, not for him. He knows 
that he must die ; he hopes that he may live again. 
He is conscious of powers which separate him from 
all known life ; he believes, half in fear, half in 
hope, that there is a life above him to which he is 
related, but he does not dare to urge his kinship 
with a holy God. The Incarnation is a revelation 
pure and simple, not a confirmation of the hope or 
dream of humanity. And atonement, as has been 
suggested, appears in natural religions only under 
the idea of propitiation. The idea of an atonement 
originating with God and consummated through 
sacrifice on his part is foreign to all natural re- 
ligions. And the difference in the reflex influence 
of a belief in a system which expresses the cease- 
less striving of man to propitiate an angry deity, 
and belief in a system of grace working from 
above in the ceaseless endeavor to turn the sinner 
from his sin, is simply incalculable. The differ- 
ence gives the Christian motive to repentance and 
faith. " We love Him, because He first loved us." 
Christianity thus reveals man to himself in a 
new light, as it uncovers the agencies which are at 
work toward the renovation of his moral nature 
and toward his restoration to God. Nature is con- 
tradictory in her valuation of man, now strangely 
exalting him to her high places of power, and 
again casting him down, or trifling with him as if 
the veriest plaything in her domain. There are 
times when man is obliged to take refuge from the 



142 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

domination and caprice of nature in the one thought 
that he is a conscious being. Pascal says : — 

" Our whole dignity consists in thought. Man is but 
a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. 
It is not necessary that the entire universe should arm 
itself to crush him. A breath of air, a drop of water, 
suffices to kill him. But were the universe to crush him, 
man would still be more noble than that which kills him, 
because he knows that he dies, and the universe knows 
nothing of the advantage which it has over him." 

Law elevates man to the dignity of a responsible 
agent. When he finds himself addressed in the 
language of moral authority, to which he is capable 
of responding, he takes a new measure of himself. 
It is greater to hear the " Thou shalt," and " Thou 
shalt not," of moral law than to stand in the place 
of a master among inanimate forces. But moral 
law can only tell man what he ought to be. It 
leaves him confronted with duty. Christianity 
comes in to tell him what he may be. It is a rev- 
elation to him of his possibilities. It confronts 
him, not with a legal standard, but with a Life in 
which he may read his possible character and des- 
tiny, and through which he may attain that char- 
acter and destiny. It assures him of help sufficient 
and unfailing. It links his struggles and aspira- 
tions, even his very repentings, to a power which 
was at work for him before his effort for himself 
began, and which will go on, in his behalf, in its 
steadiness and strength amid the fluctuations of his 
own strivings. " We," says Paul to the Christian 



THE CHRISTIAN. 143 

converts of Asia Minor, " are his workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which 
God afore prepared that we should walk in them." 
And again, to the Christians at Philippi, " Being 
confident of this very thing, that He which began a 
good work in you will perfect it until the day of 
Jesus Christ." 

Christianity thus conditions the life which is to 
become Christian before the process begins which 
is to make it Christian. When the Christian idea 
is apprehended, its revelation of God in his pur- 
pose, its interpretation of man in his possibilities, 
as it is practically apprehended under the training 
of the Christian home and school and church, then 
the process through which the Christian is devel- 
oped, though it may be in some cases severe and 
protracted, is simple and clear. It is all expressed 
in the personal act of repentance toward God, and 
of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The personal 
appropriation of Christ in his life and death con- 
stitutes a sinner a Christian. Henceforth he rep- 
resents, according to the reality of his faith and 
the seriousness of his purpose, the new type of 
manhood. In his individual life he is called, by 
virtue of this change, " a new creature," " a new 
creation." As related to other men, he belongs to 
the Christian type. 

Our second inquiry concerns the place of the 
Christian before God. What is the position into 
which he is brought by virtue of his relation, 
through penitence and faith, to Christ ? The New 



X 



144 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Testament uniformly expresses this condition or 
estate by one term — sonsliip. It knows no other 
term which is not included in this. The teachings 
of Christ, as indeed his personal relations with 
men, all point to the establishment of this relation- 
ship. But we are so apt to interpret the sayings 
of our Lord in some exceptional way, as if they 
were not good when detached from his person, and 
could not be transferred to the life of the church, 
that we often fail to apply them in their reality 
and fullness to the more important questions of 
Christianity. So that it is only as we pass over 
into the actual workings of Christianity as a sys- 
tem that we come to understand the practical sig- 
nificance of this idea of sonship. When we read 
the Epistles of Paul and John, as these writers ad- 
dress themselves to the life coming in from Juda- 
ism and heathenism, we see that Christianity is 
proceeding upon the one principle of building up 
character and developing personality on the basis 
of the filial relation. Paul makes this principle 
most conspicuous, by boldly transferring the work- 
ing of the divine power in the training of life from 
the legal to the filial basis. He assures those to 
whom he writes that the place of sonship is theirs, 
theirs by the bestowal of grace and according to 
the rights of faith. They were in it. This was 
the first thing for them to believe. Nothing could 
be accomplished in them or through them, in a 
Christian way, until they believed it. The fact 
once accepted in full and hearty assurance, the 



THE CHRISTIAN. 145 

work in character could go on. So Paul reasons 
throughout his epistles, striving to establish the 
idea of sonship in the minds of Christian believers, 
and to strengthen and encourage them in the as- 
surance of its application to their own lives. 

Christianity, when rightly apprehended, always 
makes the idea of sonship fundamental in per- 
sonal belief and in the upbuilding of character. 
Christian character is the outgrowth and develop- 
ment of the filial relation. All the restraints and 
all the incentives which are peculiar to Christianity 
centre about this relation of the soul to God. Why 
does the Christian shrink from wrong-doing ? Be- 
cause he is a child of God, acknowledged as such 
of Him, and assured of this relationship in his 
own consciousness. Inconsistency is the restraining 
power in his life, not fear. And when he falls 
away into sin, the motive to repentance is not so 
much the dread of things to come as the present 
sense of shame. Christ looking upon Peter in his 
denial, and Peter going out to weep, is the type of 
Christian condemnation and repentance. In like 
manner the working of this principle of sonship 
comes in to take away those selfish motives which 
are often attributed to the Christian salvation. 
Why does the Christian strive to build himself up in 
right character ? Because he is conscious that God 
is working within him " to will and to work for his 
good pleasure," This is the motive which acts in 
advance of all other motives toward the same end. 
The supreme motive to right doing is gratitude, 
10 



146 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

love, the sense of God's partnership with him in the 
struggle and in the result. So that here again the 
Christian is not at work simply for something to 
eome to him in reward, but equally because of 
something which has come to him for which he 
would make return. Heaven lies before him in 
expectation, but the springs of his activity, the 
sources of his endeavor, lie deep in the conscious- 
ness of that love which assures him that he is a 
child of God. 

It may be said that we have sketched the ideal 
Christian. We reply that we have sketched the 
real Christian. If the average Christian life does 
not express itself in the way which has been indi- 
cated, it is owing to the prevalence of the spirit of 
legalism in the church. We grant the prevalence 
of this spirit. From the beginning until now it 
has been difficult to persuade men to believe in 
Christianity, and to live according to Christianity. 
Hence Paul at the first and Luther afterward. 
Legalism follows close upon Christianity in the 
ceaseless endeavor to formulate its doctrines, to 
prescribe its methods, to dominate its life. If the 
church is to maintain the freedom of its faith and 
life, it must be through the maintenance in faith 
and life of the idea of sonship. 

We reach our third and last inquiry, as we ask, 
What is the office of the Christian in the world ? 
Does Christianity withdraw him from the world or 
carry him farther into its life ? The ruling princi- 
ple of legalism, in this regard, is separation result- 



THE CHRISTIAN. 147 

ing in exclusiveness. What is the ruling spirit of 
Christianity ? 

When we say that the method of legalism re- 
sults in exclusiveness we do not intend to charac- 
terize the earlier dispensation. The voice which 
summoned Abraham from his kindred and from his 
country declared the purpose of this separation — 
that in him all nations of the earth might be 
blessed. This separation was to be grandly inclu- 
sive in its result. The same purpose separated out 
Israel as a people, restricting its intercourse, and 
subjecting it to peculiar discipline, but keeping its 
spirit large and open through the development of 
the Messianic hope. It was only as the purpose of 
the separation was lost sight of that the national 
life became hard and exclusive. The dwindling of 
the hope allowed the growth of the narrower types 
of the national faith. Judaism gradually ceased to 
look upon the world in the light of opportunity. 
The world came to represent more and more temp- 
tation from which " the chosen people " was to de- 
fend itself. Christianity instantly reversed this 
conception of the world, and by this change of con- 
ception made it safe for its disciples to go into all 
the world in fulfillment of the command of Christ. 
The danger or safety of one's relation to the world 
always depends upon his conception of the world. 
To the Christian the world is harmless so long as it 
represents the idea of opportunity. It is safe for 
him to gain and use all which it has to offer, 
thought, wealth, or power, if he can keep this idea 
uppermost in his mind. 



148 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

The office of the Christian in the world is to com- 
municate Christianity to the world. Self-protec- 
tion is secondary, or rather it is most completely 
gained by the fulfillment of this object. The indi- 
vidual Christian represents this purpose, and the 
church. The church is the Christian organized to 
this end. There are other uses of the Christian 
organization, but this is the object which gives 
meaning and advantage to all others. This com- 
munication of Christianity to the world through the 
Christian, in his individual or associated life, is ef- 
fected in various ways. The earliest, as it has been 
the most persistent, method was that of testimony. 
The Christian stood out in the world representing 
a new fact, a new principle, a new faith. Through 
his life he advertised Christianity. The simpler 
his life, the more natural his faith, the more he 
called the attention of men to his religion. Not 
infrequently this natural and unostentatious witness 
to his faith cost him his life. Then Christianity 
was communicated to other lives. Persecution car- 
ried it even to the hearts of persecutors. Some- 
times the witness to the faith found expression in 
protest against prevailing immoralities and cruel- 
ties. Christianity declared itself in appreciable 
and effective ways for the rights of man. The 
Christian became the champion of humanity. The 
result of these conflicts — the result was always a 
deliverance or a reform — carried Christianity 
farther and farther into society, and established it 
more securely in the respect and affections of men. 



THE CHRISTIAN. 149 

But the chief form in which the Christian testimony 
found expression was the creed. Very early the 
Christian learned to say, and to say aloud, " I be- 
lieve." He seems to have been filled with the 
spirit of the Psalmist who cried out, " I have be- 
come a believer, therefore I must let myself be 
heard." This affirmation of faith was contagious. 
Next to the life of the Christian, his creed has been, 
without doubt, the most effective agency in the 
communication of Christianity. The clear affirma- 
tion of faith, when the reasons can be adduced 
which support it, especially when these reasons are 
involved, as in the Apostles' Creed, in the recital of 
facts, is in itself an argument and an inspiration. 
It is an invitation to the doubting, troubled, and 
even defiant heart of this world. The power of the 
creed — the power, that is, of the believing Chris- 
tian — must always be a chief agent in the spread 
of Christianity. It is a noticeable fact that each 
new apprehension of Christianity on the part of 
the church has been the means of a larger and 
closer contact with the world. On the whole, the 
advance of Christianity may be traced in the prog- 
ress of doctrine. 

Perhaps the most natural and available way, to 
the majority, in which the Christian may fulfill his 
office of communicating Christianity is through his 
identification with the world. When this identifi- 
cation becomes formal, as in the alliance between 
church and state, it becomes dangerous. But there 
are numberless ways in which it may be vital and 



150 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

even organic, without becoming formal. The 
Christian is a member of the family, a factor in 
society, a citizen of the state. He is a partner in 
the affairs of men. He deals in administration. 
He is a student, an inquirer into things of common 
concern, an adventurer, like other men, into the 
unrevealed and unexplored realms of thought. In 
all these relations and employments he has the op- 
portunity to leave the personal impress of his 
Christianity. Probably nothing is more effective 
or helpful to Christianity than the action of the 
Christian man, when he is most unconsciously the 
Christian. But in all these relations there is need 
for the intentional and well-considered application 
of Christianity. These are all to be Christianized 
— vitalized with the Christian spirit, and informed 
with the Christian purpose. Sometimes it is dif- 
ficult to cause the individual Christian to see that 
his personal responsibility extends beyond the use 
of his personal example. " If I am a Christian 
in my business," he may ask, " have I not fulfilled 
my duty ? " No. . It is your duty to make it easy, 
in some cases to make it possible, for others to be 
Christians in the same business. Nor is it suffi- 
ciently considered that it may be easier to one's 
self to attempt a reform in a given business, when 
its methods have become unchristian and immoral, 
than to attempt to maintain alone the true and 
Christian method. There may be times, under the 
competitions of business, when the Christian man 
must resort to questionable methods, or succumb to 



THE CHRISTIAN. 151 

failure, if lie cannot change the method and lift the 
standard. And when we pass from matters of more 
private interest to those of public concern, the ne- 
cessity for the active and cooperative communica- 
tion of Christian methods and principles becomes 
apparent. Present examples are to be found in the 
movement for the protection of the family, and in 
that for purity in political life. 

The communication of Christianity, however, as- 
sumes its large and imperative form as it finds ex- 
pression in the endeavor of the Christian to fulfill 
his Lord's command in the conversion of the world. 
Christianity is a salvation. That salvation is 
meant for every man. And men are to carry it to 
one another. It is to be on its human side a com- 
municated salvation. It has no other visible power 
of extension. The figure of the seed or the leaven 
does not apply to Christianity as a salvation extend- 
ing from man to man. The human element is the 
active element in its extension. There must be a 
going into all the world, a preaching of the gospel 
to the w T hole creation. This going into all the 
world means searching through the city, following 
along the track of emigration or commerce or ad- 
venture, penetrating into the dark and well-nigh 
inaccessible places of the earth. This preaching 
the gospel to the w T hole creation means that where- 
ever man lives the Christian has a message for him. 
And we are not to forget that the known contents 
of the message are the reason for the going. Chris- 
tianity is to be carried because it is a gospel, " good 



152 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

news," "glad tidings." Like his Divine Master the 
Christian is sent " not to condemn the world, but 
that the world through him may be saved." It is 
to be feared that Christianity is suffering more at 
present in the missionary form of expression than 
in any other. Christianity is apprehended as a 
faith, as an institution, as an organic force in so- 
ciety. We fear that it is not sufficiently appre- 
hended as a gospel. The church stands equipped 
with organization ; it lacks, if anywhere, in the 
spirit of communication. But this lack is serious, 
and if long continued will visibly diminish the mis- 
sionary power of the church. We are wont to say 
in the consciousness of any spiritual want that the 
church needs a revival of religion. Let us be more 
specific, in the sense of our present want, and say 
that the church needs a revival of Christianity. 



VII. 

CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 

The principles upon which we have been reason- 
ing are both attested and applied in the command 
of our Lord : " All authority hath been given unto 
Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and 
make disciples of all the nations." 

No such commission had ever before been given ; 
none such, we may presume, could have been. The 
end must be present in the beginning in all moral 
as in all natural development. The absolute 
ethical good which holy spirits find and enjoy in 
God can become the law and blessedness of souls 
that have sinned only as it first becomes the means 
of their regeneration and personal conquest of evil. 
Here is the problem of human recovery, as Kant so 
plainly saw from the heights of philosophy, and all 
men serious and earnest in the pursuit of right- 
eousness have practically discovered. Christ alone 
solved it, and for all. He is the Alpha and the 
Omega, the beginning as the goal, of human perfec- 
tion. He first brought into the world, as a living 
factor in its religious history, a flawless and con- 
summate righteousness, realizing it in his conduct 
no less than in his precepts, recognizing and meet- 



154 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

ing its utmost demands in his death as well as in 
his life, offering himself an utter sacrifice for it, 
and rising in the power of God in attestation of its 
victory. A universal religion for a sinful and guilty 
race implies a universal Saviour. A moral and 
spiritual recovery of mankind, even as an aim of 
benevolent purpose, presupposes the provision of a 
power in motive and a use of this power propor- 
tionate to the evil to be confronted and the good to 
be accomplished. " It was the good pleasure of the 
Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell." 
The fullness was set over against the need. Chris- 
tianity is not a matter of words, but of deed and of 
power. Its salvation was not offered until it could 
be made effectual. As its aim is human transfor- 
mation, — a regeneration of the individual which 
is a new creation, a moral renewal of society which 
realizes in this world the kingdom of heaven, a com- 
pleted fellowship above, which is the consummation 
in body and soul, and the eternal fellowship, of the 
holy from every generation and every realm, — it 
must bear within itself all the forces requisite for 
the achievement of such results. These powers are 
provided and pledged in the name into which it 
baptizes ; and not until God was thus revealed were 
they supplied and made available and effective. 
Transient theophanies, typical sacrifices, gifts of the 
Spirit there were before ; but no Incarnation, no 
Atonement, no descent and indwelling of the Holy 
Ghost. All antecedent revelations had been pre- 
paratory and partial, and all spiritual renewals no 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 155 

less anticipatory, prophetic, and incomplete. Jesus 
alone lived a perfect life ; alone revealed the Father 
as the necessary and real correlative of an actual 
conscious sonship; alone entered into the entire 
range of human need and represented it in perfect 
obedience, righteousness, and love before a merciful 
and holy God; alone drew into the race, in the 
fullness of its power to transform and save, the ab- 
solute good there is for men in God ; alone pro- 
vided the perfect pattern which could be used in the 
moulding of character ; alone imparted the motive 
power which could reach to all conditions of human 
life and stages of human development, through the 
preaching of the gospel and the demonstration of 
the Spirit. Whatever we may think of antecedent 
revelations, the apostle teaches us the large fact and 
truth in the case when he says, even of the days of 
Jesus's earthly ministry, " The Spirit was not yet 
given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." The 
risen exalted Christ sent the Spirit, Then, then 
for the first time, was there in the world a religion 
competent to a world-wide mission. 

That Christian missions thus imply and rest 
upon the absoluteness and universality of Chris- 
tianity has been evident throughout their history. 
Entire submission to Jesus's supreme authority, re- 
liance upon his divine power, belief in the suffi- 
ciency and completeness of the gospel and in its 
necessity for human salvation, have been the con- 
stant sources and signs of their power. Even where 
such principles have been restricted in their applica- 



156 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

tion or theoretically impaired, they have been the 
heart and soul of movements which will always 
compel admiration. If in the line of thought on 
which we shall now proceed attention is turned 
predominantly to what is defective, it is not be- 
cause we are unmoved by the greatness and glory of 
what has been achieved, but because we hope that 
by such a method lessons may be learned which 
will be helpful in the performance of duties which 
are at hand. 

The early church entered with zeal on the work 
of individual testimony to the saving power of 
Christ. The gospel was soon promulgated through- 
out the Roman Empire, and beyond its boundaries. 
The witness of martyrdom shows how real was the 
belief in the absolute supremacy of Christ. The 
note expressed by the word catholic marks the 
church's sense of its wholeness or completeness 
in doctrine and membership, and, finally, of its uni- 
versality, and thus points to the universality of the 
gospel. But in various ways these predicates of 
Christianity were impaired. At the outset a crass 
millennianism clouded the vision of very many. 
The heathen nations were regarded as ruled by de- 
mons. The conflict between good and evil in this 
world is a battle between Satan and Christ. The 
victory will be won by the visible coming of Christ 
to set up his kingdom at Jerusalem. The nations 
will be judged, not saved. Justin Martyr tells us 
that, although those who were orthodox Christians 
on all points were assured as to the truth of this 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 157 

doctrine, many true Christians thought otherwise. 
Yet for more than two centuries after the apostolic 
age, with the exception of the clear-eyed Origen, 
no teacher of the church appears to have anticipated 
that Christianity would conquer the Empire by 
virtue of its inherent moral and spiritual forces, 
or that a divine kingdom would be established in 
the world by the preaching of the gospel. This 
failure to appreciate what we may call the intensive 
absoluteness of Christianity, the absoluteness of 
its moral quality, affected injuriously its entire de- 
velopment in the early centuries. The theory and 
practice of the church in its work of establishing 
Christ's kingdom ceased more and more to be ruled 
by the idea of spiritual regeneration. There was 
no vision of a world-wide civilization transformed 
by the power of the gospel. On the contrary, w r e 
see the beginnings of a reign of asceticism and 
monasticism. The dissolution of the Roman Em- 
pire was rightly anticipated, but it was not dreamed 
of that the agents in this work of destruction would 
be heathen tribes who would one day, converted to 
Christianity, be the chief instruments in carrying 
a purer gospel to nations outside the then known 
world, and to the very lands where the apostles es- 
tablished the matrices ecclesice. So much larger 
and more merciful is the providential unfolding of 
prophecy than what once passed for its valid and 
orthodox interpretation ! 

The conversion of Constantine and his ascension 
to the throne as sole emperor changed men's 



158 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

thoughts of the kingdom of God. The church 
started on a career of influence and authority in 
union with the state. With power came the an- 
ticipation of earthly dominion. Augustine became 
for mediaeval history the exponent of the altered 
opinion. The millennium was now understood to 
have begun with the first Advent, or at least with 
the conquest of the Empire. The kingdom of God 
is the catholic or universal church, which may be 
known by its historical connection with the churches 
founded by apostles. It is an outward visible or- 
ganization ; there is no salvation outside of its pale, 
although not all within it are true members and 
will finally be saved. Here again was an encroach- 
ment upon that spiritual quality which is essential 
to any true conception of the absoluteness of the 
gospel. With this conception of the church was as- 
sociated in Augustine's mind, though not as a log- 
ical sequence, the doctrine of a division of mankind 
into two classes whose final destination should illus- 
trate two aspects of the divine character, its justice 
and its grace. He seems to have regarded the for- 
mer as a more important attribute or quality than 
the latter ; at least he teaches that more by far are 
condemned than saved, in order that thus may be 
shown what is due to all. The church never rati- 
fied Augustine's predestinationism, although it af- 
firmed his doctrine of the prevenience and suprem- 
acy of grace. Nearly every great missionary of 
the mediaeval era was a monk, 1 and monastic Au- 

1 Maclear, A History of Christian Missions during the Mid- 
die Ages, p. 406. 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 159 

gustinianism was ordinarily a diluted doctrine. Two 
principles, however, became established in West- 
ern missionary belief, — original sin and the ne- 
cessity of baptism. All men are by nature exposed 
and justly condemned to eternal punishment. Di- 
vine grace operates for the rescue of the lost 
through the visible church, by its priesthood and 
sacraments. All not saved by these instrumental- 
ities perish everlastingly. At bottom there was a 
conception of God inconsistent with the absolute- 
ness of Christianity, and even with his ethical per- 
fection. For it is as necessary that God should be 
benevolent as that He should be just, and justice 
itself is deprived of its prerogative when it no lon- 
ger maintains the rights of redeeming love. Un- 
less the justice as well as the compassion of God 
are pledged to Redemption, it can no longer claim 
a place in the divine purposes. And if Christianity 
represents but a subordinate attribute or quality 
of the divine nature it is but an imperfect good, 
and can play but an inferior part in the universe. 
The mediaeval thought of God and of Christianity 
was profoundly dualistic, save as it gained a seem- 
ing unity by an exaltation of an unethical omnipo- 
tence. In neither way could Christianity be rightly 
interpreted. Where this thought was most ethical, 
it made Christianity something subordinate and 
limited ; where it was least ethical, it made Chris- 
tianity arbitrary. Mediaeval missions suffered from 
these causes. They aimed too little at spiritual con- 
quests. They were not inspired by the conception 



160 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

of Christianity as a revelation of universal and 
absolute love. To the church at large the heathen 
were but as Turks. That the former should fall 
by the sword of the divine justice was as fitting as 
that the latter should be massacred by Crusaders. 
Happily names like those of Eaymund Lull and 
St. Francis of Assisi rise up to qualify such state- 
ments. We speak only of the general sentiment 
and practice. 

One of the most striking evidences of the fail- 
ure of mediaeval Christianity to appreciate the uni- 
versality of the gospel is found in one of its noblest 
products, the u De Imitatione Christi " of Thomas 
a Kempis. This little book has had a circulation 
beyond any other writing outside of the sacred 
canon. It is the flower and finest fruit of mediaeval 
mysticism. One must read it often to appreciate 
its strange power, its unworldliness, its deadly hos- 
tility to pride, its austere solid sweetness, its calm 
deep undertone of condemnation for every endeavor 
to satisfy an immortal spirit with anything but the 
love of God. 

The late Dean of St. Paul's, Mr. Milman, has 
passed a severe judgment on this book. Its aim, 
he affirms, is entirely and absolutely selfish. Never 
was there such a misnomer as its title. Much may 
be said in mitigation of this censure. To escape 
from selfishness is the purpose of the practical mys- 
tical school, and although this is less pronounced 
in the " De Imitatione " than in the " Theologia 
Germanica," it is still there. The writer combats 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 161 

externalism and formalism. Deeds of charity are 
profitless without love. " He doeth much who lov- 
eth much ; he doeth much who doeth well ; and he 
doeth much and well who constantly preferreth 
the good of the community to the gratification of 
his own will." 

Yet mediaeval mysticism, with all its moral ear- 
nestness, self-renunciation, divine aspirations, and 
with its lofty doctrine of the soul as capax Dei, 
produced no missionary hero. Its object, as Dean 
Milman justly says, is the elevation of the individ- 
ual soul, of the man wholly isolated from his kind. 
The lauded preference of the good of the commu- 
nity is a sacrifice of self-will rather than a realiza- 
tion of an infinite good, capable of blessing all, and 
found only as it becomes the motive to an inex- 
haustible benevolence. This good, moreover, is not 
appreciated as redeeming love, which penetrates the 
souls of the rebellious and guilty, and solves the 
problem how a selfish heart can be made unselfish 
and Christlike. It is not, therefore, to be won- 
dered at that piety so deep as that of this priceless 
book lacks aggressive and missionary power. It 
missed as really, though in a very different way, 
the true absoluteness of Christianity as did the for- 
malism and scholasticism it reacted from and com- 
bated. 

The Reformers remedied the essential defect of 
the mediaeval method of piety by restoring Paul's 
doctrine of faith. Faith is not mere assent to au- 
thoritative formulas, but an acceptance of forgi ve- 
il 



162 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

ness through Christ, an acceptance of Him in his 
personal truth and love, so that He becomes the 
inspiring principle of a new life of gratitude and 
devotion. The doctrine of spiritual personal re- 
generation thus regained its rights. And more 
than this, — the divinely appointed method of com- 
plete spiritual restoration again became clear. But 
as piety alone, even the profound and spiritual piety 
of the mediaeval mystics, did not produce mission- 
aries, so the evangelical apprehension by the Re- 
formers of the way of salvation was equally for a 
time inoperative. The reason, if we mistake not, 
w r as at bottom the same. In neither case was a 
one-sided individualism overcome ; in neither was 
there a due appreciation of the universality of the 
gospel. 

The failure of the Reformers to grasp the mis- 
sionary idea is sometimes excused on the ground of 
their absorption in the task immediately obliga- 
tory. The apology is valid, perhaps, as respects 
the actual organization of missionary movements. 
But something more than the absence of active 
participation in such efforts appears. The mission- 
ary idea itself — a recognition of the Christian duty 
to evangelize heathendom — is wanting. 1 In the 
case of Luther his eschatological opinions obscured 
his vision. He thought the end of the world was 
at hand, and that the heathen w r ere doomed to de- 
struction. We cannot but suspect at times in his 

1 So Dr. Warneck in Herzog and Plitt's Real Encyclopadie, 
x. 37 sqq. 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 163 

feeling toward Jews and Turks a slight survival of 
the old Teutonic barbarism, as in Tertullian's ex- 
ultation in view of the last judgment there appears 
to be something of Punic ferocity. Calvin had 
a larger faith as to the extension of Christianity ; 
but, so far as we have observed, nowhere urges the 
obligation resting upon the church to christianize 
the heathen nations. When he comments on the 
" great commission " his thought is engrossed with 
the equality which it implies between Jews and 
Gentiles. The Apostle Paul was " not ashamed of 
the gospel, because it is the power of God unto sal- 
vation to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, 
and also to the Greek," that is, to the pagan every- 
where. Calvin's thought, like Luther's, concerns 
itself not with heathen Gentiles but with Christian, 
who, under the gospel, are made equal to the Jew. 
The duty of sending missionaries to the uncon- 
verted heathen is not recognized in his comment. 
It seemed to him to be perfectly just for God to 
consign all the heathen to endless punishment on 
account of original sin, apart from their actual 
transgressions, and it was not fitting that any sub- 
ject of the infinite sovereign should question his 
acts. Doubtless he would have rejoiced to hear 
that Protestant Christianity was gaining a foothold 
anywhere, and he would not have been indifferent 
(as perhaps the Genevan support of Villegaignon 
shows) to any missionary undertaking for which 
Providence seemed to be opening the way. But his 
conception of Christianity was colored through and 



164 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

through by his conception of God as an absolute 
sovereign, who sends salvation to whom He wills 
and withholds it from whom He wills. Redemption 
is particular, not universal ; Christianity is a means 
to an end, a special remedy in a particular exi- 
gency, not the consummation of God's revelation 
to the universe of his ethical nature as perfect 
Love. A world-wide missionary thought and aim, 
it might be supposed, would spring up -in a mind 
so thoroughly imbued as was Calvin's with rever- 
ence for the divine sovereignty before such a com- 
mand as that on which he comments. But it did 
not. " The words that I have spoken unto you are 
spirit and are life." The " great commission " is 
the outcome of the great sacrifice. If the latter is 
conceived of as limited, the former is not likely to 
be apprehended as universal. Count Zinzendorf 
interpreted the divine sovereignty better than Cal- 
vin when he said : " The whole earth is the Lord's ; 
men's souls are all his ; I am debtor to all." 

These words were uttered in 1741. They struck 
the key-note of modern missions; but many dec- 
ades were still . to pass away before the leading 
Protestant churches, other than the Unitas Fra- 
trum, were moved to action. 

Many powerful influences conspired to bring 
about such a movement. 

The Roman Catholic powers lost the supremacy 
of the seas. The colonial power of England rose 
to an extraordinary height. Colonization and traffic 
brought the leading Protestant nations into connec- 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 165 

tion with many and wide-spread peoples. Mission- 
ary effort on any large scale has always been 
preceded by great advances in the means or oc- 
casions of intercourse. The roads of the Roman 
Empire, and the Empire itself, opened the way for 
the first preaching of the gospel. The irruptions of 
the barbarians prepared for and stimulated the 
Teutonic missions. The very remarkable and ex- 
tensive Roman Catholic missions of the fifteenth, 
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries were intimately 
connected with the maritime and colonial en- 
terprises of Portugal, Spain, and France. The 
more sporadic and inferior efforts of the earlier 
Protestantism had a similar basis. The present 
interest in missions arises in part from the fact 
that the world is now open to the missionary to an 
altogether unprecedented degree. The beginnings 
of this great change in the relations of Protestant 
nations to heathendom were making themselves felt 
when Christians, in England and in this country, 
were moved to those organized efforts for the spread 
of the gospel in foreign lands which have marked 
the religious history of this century. 

Another cause was the development, in the eight- 
eenth century, of the sentiment of humanity. No 
one can read the appeals to the Christian public 
sent forth by the founders and early friends of the 
leading missionary societies without being im- 
pressed by the prominence which is given to hu- 
maneness and pity. Those familiar with the litera- 
ture of this subject will at once recall the stirring 



166 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

addresses of Dr. David Bogue, who has been called, 
not undeservedly, the father of the London Mis- 
sionary Society. As one specimen of many we cite 
a few sentences from a document put forth in 1818 
by the Church Missionary Society : — 

" Whither can the fainting eye of misery turn but to 
this great Protestant Empire . . . ? 

" Where, then, is our love to our fellow-creatures, if 
we do not rise to communicate to them that unspeakable 
blessing, which has first visited us, that it may be sent on 
to others ? Where is our humanity, our benevolence, 
our compassion, if we spring not forth in this office of 
grace ? What ! shall the unhappy widow still perish on 
the funeral pile — shall the helpless infant still sink un- 
der the hand of its parent — shall the deformed orgies of 
Juggernaut continue to prevail, and the bones of the 
wretched pilgrim whiten its plains — shall the horrid rites 
of cannibalism yet subsist, and temples for the worship of 
devils be openly reared — shall all the disgusting cere- 
monies of impurity and blood remain in undiminished 
force — shall ignorance and vice and despair brood over 
the fairest portion of the globe, and the prostrate un- 
derstanding and savage passions of man bind him a 
slave to earth ? — and shall Britons hesitate to convey to 
the several sufferers the knowledge, and grace, and life, 
cf an eternal Redemption ? " 1 

A further and yet more important influence came 
from the religious revivals of the last century, — 
the Pietism of Spener, the Moravian and Wes- 
leyan movements, the preaching of Whitefield, the 

i Invitation to assist the Attempts of the Church Missionary Soci- 
ety for the Conversion of the Heathen. London, 1818. 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 167 

u Great Awakening " in this country. With these 
were connected important doctrinal changes, par- 
ticularly a clearer and more Biblical apprehension 
of conversion as a spiritual renovation wrought 
by the Holy Spirit through the influence of truth 
applied as motive, and a recognition of the Atone- 
ment not merely as sufficient for the salvation 
of all men, but as intended for all. The first 
organized action which ushered in the new mis- 
sionary era came from the Calvinistic Baptists in 
England. When William Carey, its originator, 
at a meeting of clergymen proposed for discussion 
the topic : " The duty of Christians to attempt the 
spread of the gospel among heathen nations," an 
elderly divine sprang to his feet, and thundered 
out, " Young man, sit down ! When God pleases 
to convert the heathen He will do it without your 
aid or mine." We see the old Calvinism and the 
new here in conflict. Carey found supporters in 
men who adopted the principles of what abroad was 
called "American Theology," and is known here 
as " Edwardean " or " New School " or " New Eng- 
land" divinity. All the earlier and more impor- 
tant societies — the Baptist Missionary, the Lon- 
don Missionary, the Church Missionary — seem to 
have been founded and supported by men who had 
broken more or less openly with the old Calvinism, 
and obtained larger conceptions of the Atonement 
of Christ than it afforded. Even when the old 
phraseology is retained the emphasis is different. 
In this country, where the new doctrine had gained 



168 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

powerful supporters, it became prominent at once 
in pleas for missions. In the sermon preached by 
Dr. Woods in Salem, at the ordination of the first 
missionaries of the American Board (February 6, 
1812), he urged, as a motive for " effort to seek the 
conversion of all mankind," " the plenteousness of 
the provision which Christ has made for their sal- 
vation," an atonement not only " sufficient for 
Asiatics and Africans," but " made for them as well 
as for us." He rebuked as indicative of the lim- 
ited and exclusive spirit of Judaism any lower esti- 
mate of the Christian dispensation. 

Besides the postulates of universal sinfulness and 
universal atonement, one other was generally ac- 
cepted by the founders of modern missions, namely, 
the indispensableness of revealed truth. The last 
named principle, like the first, struck its roots into 
the traditional theology. The Savoy Declaration, 
adopted by the Congregational churches in England 
and America as a Confession of Faith, affirmed 
that the — 

" Promise of Christ, and salvation by Him is revealed 
only by the Word of God ; neither do the works of crea- 
tion or providence, with the light of nature, make dis- 
covery of Christ, or of grace by Him, so much as in a 
general or obscure way ; much less that men destitute 
of the revelation of Him by the promise or gospel should 
be enabled thereby to attain saving faith or repent- 
ance." 

This necessity of a knowledge of revealed truth 
is the burden of early missionary sermons preached 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 169 

before the American Board. It will suffice to 
refer to President Appleton's, whose object was to 
show that " the true character of God is not known 
except by revelation." He declines to agitate the 
question " whether some individuals may not be 
sanctified by the Spirit who are precluded from all 
acquaintance with revealed religion." Such purely 
exceptional cases he appears to regard as of no 
serious account in the large and practical issue. 
How much this principle of the necessity of revela- 
tion was an axiom with the fathers may be seen 
in Dr. Emmons's sermon on " The Hopeless State 
of the Heathen " ; it is assumed by the preacher 
without argument. The acceptance of the same 
principle by the promoters of missions in England 
may be illustrated by a reference to a published 
sermon before the Church Missionary Society by 
Rev. E. T. Vaughan. His proposition is : " The 
Reception of Christ is essential to Salvation." Such 
an insistence upon opportunity for the working of 
the motives of redemption wherever there is re- 
covery from the guilt and power of sin was par- 
ticularly appropriate and consistent on the part of 
men who were contending against the doctrine of 
passive regeneration. 

Thus far the new missionary movement was 
strongly in the direction of a better understanding 
of the absoluteness and universality of the gospel, 
and indeed was largely the fruit of such an appre- 
ciation. It is not strange, judging by past ex- 
perience, that it did not at once go farther. Every 



170 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

advance in thought requires time to work itself 
clear, to perfect its somewhat disturbed connections 
with the past, to measure its strength and discover 
what it can contribute to the future. Luther saw 
that in the Reformation principle of justification by- 
faith only lay the germ of a new doctrine of per- 
sonality ; but how slowly this conception has de- 
veloped its power. So, in the principle of the 
universality of the Atonement which introduced the 
modern era of " world-missions," was involved the 
doctrine, which is just beginning to make itself felt, 
of the personal relation of Jesus Christ, the incar- 
nate Redeemer, to each and every member of the 
race. For the new and inspiring thought in the 
rise of modern missions was not simply that Christ r s 
passion is sufficient for all, — this was the conserva- 
tive orthodoxy of the day, — but that He died in 
intention and purpose for all. Intention and pur- 
pose imply and establish a personal relation, and 
this relation remained to be thought out if the 
movement begun was not to be arrested in mid 
career, and the absoluteness of Christianity still 
left in shadow and partial eclipse. 

There were as usual in such cases traditional 
prepossessions and assumptions which were not yet 
adjusted to the new principle or excluded by it. 

One of these was a belief in the universal doom 
of the pagan. The Reformers inherited the Au- 
gustinian doctrine of humanity as a massa per- 
ditionis. Only sovereign grace rescues those who 
are elected to salvation. Christianity, instead of be- 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 171 

ing absolute and universal, was interpreted as par- 
ticular and exclusive. Luther began to break away 
from this mode of conception when he learned to 
read the doctrine of election in the wounds of 
Christ ; but the dogma of universal and damnable 
guilt by Adam's sin stood fast. The Biblical judg- 
ments upon the heathen were understood to include 
their final doom. The means of grace were neces- 
sary to salvation, and the heathen were destitute of 
them. There being no hope beyond the present 
life, all were regarded as lost. A Lutheran pastor 
in Denmark was " ordered to leave the kingdom on 
account of having preached what was condemned 
as 'the damnable heresy that by God's grace even 
heathens might be saved.' " The Reformed doc- 
trine admitted the possibility of the salvation of 
some pagans by election, but made little or no ac- 
count of it. In the beginning of the last century 
and the close of the preceding, religious people in 
Boston and vicinity were deeply interested in a 
series of Tuesday lectures by the Rev. Samuel 
Willard, pastor of the South Church, and one of 
the most eminent divines in New England history 
before the days of Jonathan Edwards. These lec- 
tures were published posthumously, with a preface 
by Joseph Sewall and Thomas Prince in which this 
body of divinity is characterized as "one of the 
noblest and choicest ... we have anywhere met 
with, or we are apt to think has yet appeared in the 
world." Hardly any book, we are told, has been 
more passionately wished for. The author raises 



172 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

the question " whether we may have any grounded 
hopes of the salvation of such as never enjoyed the 
Scriptures?" and reasons to the conclusion that 
any such hope is groundless. 

" There is no reason to be given for it, yea, and it 
tends to subvert the gospel and make the ordinances of it 
unnecessary, to encourage men in neglect and ignorance 
of the Scriptures ; for either they must be saved without 
Christ, which is impossible ; or by Him without believing, 
which takes away the new covenant condition; or be- 
lieve without knowledge of Him, which takes away the 
very nature of Faith ; or come to the knowledge of Him 
some other way, winch is unaccountable ; the light of 
nature will not do it \ the only way of God's appointment 
is by the Scriptures ; to suppose any other is to impose 
upon God." 

The further inference is drawn that but few 
are saved " compared with the rest of mankind." 
A century later, in the sermon already named, Dr. 
Emmons still reasoned in the same strain. The 
heathen have been given up to " judicial blindness 
and hardness of heart." They do not possess the 
means of grace without which no soul can be saved, 
and they will continue to go down to hell until 
" God sends them the gospel." In their memorial 
to the governor of Bombay, December 4, 1813, the 
first missionaries sent out by the American Board 
to India affirm : — 

" We looked upon the heathen, and alas ! three fourths 
of the inhabitants of the globe had not been told that 
Jesus had ' tasted death for every man.' We saw them 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 173 

following their fathers in successive millions to eternal 
death. The view was overwhelming. " 

This conception of the doom of the pagan was 
strengthened, as we have intimated, by a further 
traditional dogma, that of distinct individual moral 
probation. This survived, and indeed first defi- 
nitely appeared in Calvinistic circles, after the doc- 
trine of the imputation to Adam's posterity of guilt 
for his transgression had been abandoned. In their 
contest with New England theologians the Prince- 
ton divines w r ere fully aware that this tenet was an 
innovation, and they pressed their opponents more 
closely at this point than any other. " Is it not 
necessary," they asked, "that a moral being should 
have a probation before his fate is decided ? When 
had men this probation ? " " A probation to be 
fair must afford as favorable a prospect of a happy 
as of an unhappy conclusion." Such a probation, 
they argued, was given in the trial of our first par- 
ents. It is not realized under the fallen condition 
of their descendants. The conception of this life's 
being the period, and this world the place where 
every human being is undergoing, individually or 
personally, a test by which his eternal destiny will 
be determined, seems to have obtained footing in 
the Western church in connection with monastic 
rules of discipline and a semi-Pelagian anthropol- 
ogy. It is foreign to strict Augustinianism and 
Calvinism. It naturally found favor, in the eight- 
eenth century, in the revolt from the Reformed an- 
thropology, and has a place in the development of 



174 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

the doctrine of free moral agency. Bishop But- 
ler's Analogy — which logically, it should be no- 
ticed, stops far short of the conclusion to which the 
dogma in question has been pressed, — helped to 
its diffusion and general acceptance. Combined 
with the received opinions as to the necessity of re- 
vealed truth and of faith to salvation, it left open 
for the heathen world no door of hope. Christian- 
ity was excluded from the great majority of men 
who had lived, and for whom the Saviour died, as 
a motive or means of recovery. Faith turned to a 
future millennium, and fondly counted up the myr- 
iads of the saved. But a universal atonement lim- 
ited in its operation by the being who made it was 
a contradiction too palpable and violent to remain 
concealed. The great forces of progress which had 
helped to bring in a new missionary age worked 
against such limitations. The sentiment of human- 
ity, itself a child of the gospel, protested against 
them. More thorough acquaintance with the Scrip- 
tures under improved methods of interpretation, 
the heightened influence of the gospel, bringing 
men's minds into, larger knowledge of the mind of 
Christ and deeper sympathy with his love to men, 
clearer and higher consequent conceptions of the 
true character of God, gradually changed the tone 
of Christian thought about the heathen. Their 
moral degradation was even better understood than 
before. Their need of the gospel was no less clear. 
But God's purpose concerning them was less and 
less dogmatically affirmed. Probably the old ap- 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 175 

peal from their inevitable doom never had the ef- 
fectiveness sometimes attributed to it. Dr. James 
A. Alexander, writing in the " Princeton Review" 
in 1843, affirmed that the great mass of Christians 
in America took " no real interest in Foreign Mis- 
sions," and gave as one of the reasons for this apa- 
thy a " secret skepticism as to the real danger of 
the heathen." This "skepticism" has not been 
long in revealing itself. " The plain truth is," re- 
marks a brilliant orthodox New England theolo- 
gian, " that human nature and sanctified nature 
give out." Berkeley was said by Reid to have 
" proved by unanswerable arguments what no man 
in his senses can believe." It has happened in 
this wise again and again with theological dogmas 
not founded in Christianity. That the heathen, as 
other men, are lost without the redemption pro- 
vided in Christ, that they need the missionary and 
the gospel, are evident truths. For ourselves we 
accept the doctrine of the fathers of modern mis- 
sions that men everywhere need for recovery the 
means of grace, but the conclusion that all are 
lost who do not receive them in this life is another 
matter. Even when such a dogma is theoretically 
held it is no longer pressed in pleas for missions. 
The secretaries of our missionary societies, so far 
as we are aware, with possibly here and there an 
exception, do not now touch this chord. The organ 
of the London Missionary Society, with commenda- 
ble frankness, has recently remarked : — 

" There was a time, and this not long ago, when the 



176 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

most forcible appeal for missions was drawn from the 
belief that the heathen who did not hear of Christ must 
drop into a hell of unending torment. The nobler 
thoughts of God which have of late taken possession of 
the church have rendered it impossible to believe that 
men could be eternally lost for not having believed truths 
never offered for their acceptance." 

We cannot regard this language as in any re- 
spect too strong. The intelligence and heart of 
the Christian church not merely decline to accept 
the old dogma of the universal perdition of the 
heathen, — they repudiate it. In the absence of 
any thorough reconsideration of the subject some 
take refuge in agnosticism ; others refuse to think 
on the subject ; others resort to a vague assertion 
of the divine leniency, a proportioning of judg- 
ment to light and opportunity ; others are reason- 
ing, along ever fading lines of moral attenuation, 
through the lowest supposable degree of saving 
faith in a pious Hebrew to the dimmest spark of 
spiritual light in a pious Gentile ; others are re- 
viving the doctrine taught in the notable " Apol- 
ogy " of Robert Barclay (a. d. 1675), which adds 
to a remarkable statement of the universality of 
the Atonement the confession of an equally uni- 
versal supernatural enlightenment of mankind dur- 
ing a day or opportunity of grace ; others find this 
saving knowledge of the Father and the Son in the 
natural conscience, a doctrine which Barclay, as 
the church generally, has deemed " Socinian and 
Pelagian." Whatever the theory or mode of re- 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. Ill 

lief, it is practically believed that large numbers 
of the heathen will be saved, even though they die 
without " the outward preaching of the gospel." 

If this were a mere question of the number of 
the saved we should not think it important here to 
dwell upon it. The absoluteness and universality 
of the gospel are not dependent on the degree of 
its success in the salvation of sinners. This ques- 
tion belongs to Theodicy, which is far from be- 
ing a complete science, or capable of a perfect 
solution of the problem of evil. We believe, in- 
deed, on Scriptural as well as rational grounds, that 
Christianity will be glorified in its triumphs over 
sin, and that the satisfaction of the Redeemer in 
the fruit of his passion involves the perfect recovery 
to holiness of countless numbers of those for whom 
He died. But we are not convinced that none will 
be lost, that Satan will finally appear truly as an 
angel of light. The absoluteness and universality 
of the gospel which are assured to us in the Scrip- 
tures are ethical and spiritual, an absoluteness of 
holy love, not of mere power, a perfect expression 
and realization of the moral nature of God in his 
universe for its greatest possible well being. The 
highest point which Theodicy as yet can reach is 
given in the touching and searching question of the 
ancient parable : " What could have been done 
more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? " 

Nor, if the present change of belief as to the 
necessary doom of the pagan involved merely the 
withdrawal or modification of one motive to Chris- 

12 



178 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

tian missions, would the problem presented be spe- 
cially difficult or urgent. The only question would 
be, how the argument for missions shall be adapted 
to such a changed attitude of mind. But the real 
issue is much broader and deeper. The question 
of the salvation of the heathen is simply one aspect 
of the fundamental religious question of our time : 
the claim of Christianity to be the one perfect and 
final religion for mankind. Involved in this issue 
are inquiries such as these : Is the final judgment 
universal ? Do the ultimate destinies of men turn 
on their personal relation to Christ ? Is Christian- 
ity essentially ethical and spiritual? Is its salva- 
tion mediated by motives, including personal in- 
fluence, addressed to and operative in the human 
reason, affections, and will? Is there one system 
of salvation for Jew and Gentile, as one final judg- 
ment ? Is God's purpose of creation and redemp- 
tion fulfilled except as He manifests himself to 
every human being as Redeemer as well as Judge ? 
What inference upon this question is legitimate 
from the universality of Christ's Person in its con- 
stitution, the universality of Christ's atonement, 
and the universality of Christ's judgment ? How 
and why is He the Son of Man, the second Adam^ 
the Creator, Mediator, and Ruler of the universe ? 
We cannot but think that the interests of mis- 
sions to the heathen require a readjustment of pleas 
in their behalf in the light of the Scriptural and 
rational answers which must be given to such ques- 
tions. If this is not done there is danger not 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 179 

merely of the loss of a particular motive to mis- 
sions, but of a loss of faitli in the principles which 
underlie the whole missionary movement. The 
cause of missions hitherto has rested, as we have 
said, on the postulates of universal sinfulness, uni- 
versal atonement, and the indispensableness o£ 
faith. It rests ultimately on the divine command 
(Matt, xxviii. 18-20), which implies the universal- 
ity and absoluteness of Christianity. The dogma 
of the damnation of the heathen is not one of these 
postulates, nor is it a Biblical teaching, but a corol- 
lary which now depends upon a dogma which is no 
part nor presupposition of the gospel — that of the 
limitation of probation for all men to the present 
life. This dogma is now working, as do all un- 
truthful exaggerations, with a disturbing and in- 
jurious effect. It is driving its advocates to posi- 
tions inconsistent with the fundamental axioms of 
Christian missions. They cannot accept the old 
conclusion of the universal perdition of the pagan. 
They continue, however, to insist upon the limita- 
tion of probation. The only and necessary relief 
is in a reduction of Christianity, a lessening of its 
claims, and a corruption of its ethical and spiritual 
quality. The endeavor is to find grounds of hope 
for the heathen outside of Christianity, or outside 
of the known sphere of its operation as moral and 
spiritual truth working as a new and mighty mo- 
tive-power in the formation of character. That, 
in quarters where this limitation of probation is 
deemed essential to orthodoxy, the drift of opinion 



180 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

is strongly in this direction is abundantly evident. 
The caution, indeed, is still interposed that the evi- 
dence requires us to hold that the " hopeful " cases 
are rare and purely exceptional, but the line of 
movement entered upon and the motive to it point 
decisively in one direction, namely, to a very large 
inclusion in the kingdom of Christ of men who are 
supposed to be saved by Him without knowledge 
of Him, and by none of the means or motives which 
are distinctive and characteristic in the Christian 
life. For the movement cannot be arrested by the 
recognition of merely exceptional cases. This 
brings no relief. It does not meet the real diffi- 
culty. It fails to take account of the efficient cause 
of the change in men's views. That cause, as the 
" Chronicle of the London Missionary Society " 
asserts, is the growth in Christian consciousness of 
"nobler thoughts of God, as revealed in Jesus 
Christ." Exceptional cases are wholly incommen- 
surate with the magnitude such a revelation intro- 
duces into the problem. To say that Christ is 
fitted by the foreordained constitution of his Person 
to sustain a personal relation to every man, that 
He actually died in intent and purpose for every 
man, that He will judge every man, as He created 
and redeemed every man, and then to say that in- 
calculable millions of these very men will never 
hear of the gospel as a provision of mercy for 
them, will never have opportunity to accept it, and 
that the comparatively few of their number who will 
be saved will be recovered without " the establish- 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 181 

ment of this personal relation to our Lord," — is 
worse than poor logic, — it is an insult, however 
unintentional, to Christianity, and practically de- 
rogatory to its claims to absoluteness and finality. 
We are not insensible to the breadth and spiritual- 
ity of the theory embodied in the Confession of the 
Society of Friends, but cannot find sufficient sup- 
port for it in historical fact and reality. We rec- 
ognize in its full value all that can be said about 
u elect " Chinese, or " elect " Jews in Christendom, 
as about " elect infants," and " all other elect per- 
sons who are incapable of being outwardly called 
by the ministry of the word." We recall Peter's 
language : " God is no respecter of persons ; but 
in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh 
righteousness is acceptable to Him." But we re- 
call also that Peter was sent to Cornelius to teach 
him the words by which he and his house should 
be saved (Acts xi. 14), and that when " filled 
with the Holy Ghost " the same Apostle affirmed 
of the historic Christ, — " Jesus Christ of Naza- 
reth," — "in none other is there salvation" (Acts 
iv. 8, 10, 12) : and we cannot but think it derog- 
atory to this salvation fully to identify it with 
any experience which does not include the knowl- 
edge of the Father through the Son. And if the 
present movement, in certain orthodox circles, to 
relieve the demand from a larger and more Chris- 
tian view of the character of God for a wide ex- 
tension of hope for the heathen, is not freed from 
the limitations of this inferential dogma about their 



182 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

probation, it will in our judgment become more and 
more difficult to maintain in effectiveness the prin- 
ciple which experience testifies lies at the very 
heart of Christian missions — the indispensableness 
of the gospel. 

A firm and practical conviction of the rightful 
and sole supremacy of Christianity has been the 
source of the strength and the heroism of the great- 
est, the most effective missionaries from the days 
of the Apostle of the Gentiles to the present hour. 
We are in earnest that no dogma be interposed 
which limits the operation of its divine power to 
conditions which exclude its exercise in any intelli- 
gible way, or on any extensive scale. We believe, 
and we think there is need of asserting the prin- 
ciple, that the author of Christianity will give it in 
time, as in all other respects, a fitting opportunity 
for its operation. We would send out missionaries 
who can ask men to renounce all other systems be- 
cause they are persuaded that Christianity, and this 
alone, fulfills all that is good in every other, and 
meets the deficiencies of every other ; missionaries 
who in the light of all of God's revelations of him- 
self, whether by human reason or human history 
or special inspiration of prophets and apostles or by 
Incarnation, with clear intelligence and perfect as- 
surance of faith w r ill present Christ as the rightful 
and the only Saviour and Lord; and we would not 
weaken their message by loading it with a dogma 
of the doom of the ancestors of the men to whom 
they preach, a dogma contradictory to the name 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 183 

they proclaim and into which they baptize, or by 
accompanying it with an apology for Christianity 
which lowers it in principle to the level of other 
religions, or makes it essentially a system operative 
in some occult way and not as " the truth as it is 
in Jesus." 

The historical course we have followed has 
brought to view only a few salient features of the 
missionary activity of the church. Many move- 
ments which would deserve attention in but a brief 
sketch of missions have been wholly unnoticed. 
Enough, however, has been presented to suggest 
most important lessons. 

It is evident that the mere letter of the divine 
command is insufficient to awaken the spirit of mis- 
sions. This has stood before the eye of the church 
for eighteen centuries, and yet how partial the 
response ! That the church has been derelict in 
duty in this matter cannot be questioned. We 
would not write a word which could be understood 
as an attempt to condone a culpable apathy and 
unbelief. Yet it would seem that the command 
of our Lord has a fullness and grandeur of mean- 
ing which require time, and varied and protracted 
experience, for their development. However this 
may be, the divine wisdom and grace, which over- 
rule the errors and sins of men for the sublimest 
ends, have led the church from one degree of at- 
tainment in the understanding of the gospel to an- 
other, and have proportioned its opportunities for 
expansion to its growth in intelligence and purity. 



184 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY, 

It might almost of itself justify the introduction of 
the Second Epistle of Peter into the Canon that it 
so deeply and spiritually interprets the delay in the 
coming of the Lord. Time, we are taught, is of no 
account, as measured by days or millenniums, in the 
plan of a Being who does not wish " that any should 
perish, but that all should come to repentance." 
He will secure for his purpose of redemption fitting 
opportunity. Its character will not be changed 
by hurrying anything. Moral processes will be 
granted the necessary periods. God has always 
cared more for the quality of faith than for its 
quantity. If his church is not ready to proclaim 
the pure gospel of the Father, the Son, and the 
Spirit, He may allow it to work out its own salva- 
tion with fear and trembling through weary gen- 
erations before He vouchsafes to it the opportu- 
nity of a world-wide mission. 

It is of importance to note that the advance of 
Christianity has been identified hitherto with a 
deeper and wider apprehension of its absoluteness 
and universality. The first progress of the gospel 
was arrested until the church grasped the idea of 
a universal .kingdom of God in this world. When 
it was gained, Europe lay at her feet. Mediaeval 
missions and Christianity are the outcome. The 
movement was then debased and corrupted by form- 
alism and sacerdotalism. When recovery came, and 
the absoluteness of divine grace — the immediate 
communication to the individual believer of the in- 
finite good of salvation — was reasserted, religion 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 185 

came forth with new powers of conquest. Some- 
thing, however, still needed to be won. The abso- 
luteness of sovereign love was too much conceived 
of as the love of an absolute sovereignty, and the 
path of missions was hedged up. The universal 
love of Christ, the passion for Christ, the obliga- 
tion of the divine command interpreted in the light 
of Christ's sacrifice for mankind, broke anew and 
with clearer light upon select souls, and the church, 
made ready thus for missionary effort, found the 
gates of new empire opened. 

This result may give relief to those who fear 
that the present expansion of thought with refer- 
ence to Christ's personal relation to every genera- 
tion and every individual of the human race will 
weaken the motive to missionary effort. When 
familiar dogmas are disappearing men are apt to 
think more of what is vanishing than of what is 
taking its place. If the present movement of 
thought adverse to the traditional limitations of 
Christ's saving work for men were a reduction of 
his claims, a lowering of the doctrine of the Incar- 
nation or the Atonement or the final Judgment, 
there might be occasion for anxiety. But in reality 
it is only a larger appreciation of all these motives 
and powers of the gospel. It deepens the reasons 
for an absolute devotion to Christ, increases the 
sense of sin and of the greatness of his redeeming 
love, emphasizes the apostolic preaching of Christ 
crucified as the power of God and the wisdom of 
God. Negatively, it simply declines to affirm that 



186 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

any soul to which this wisdom has not been re- 
vealed, and this power has not been applied, is 
beyond the pale of redemption, and that we can 
say that such motives are limited for all men by 
the opportunities of the present life. Positively, 
it is essentially an advance in the apprehension of 
what is a fundamental predicate of the gospel, — 
its ethical absoluteness. To suppose that progress 
in this direction, as it becomes apparent and is 
generally understood, will impair the claims of 
missions or retard their progress is to miss the 
lesson of history, and to take counsel of fear rather 
than of reason and Christian faith. The Apostle 
Paul instructs us from his own experience, as to 
what is the deepest and most potent motive to 
missionary effort ; it is the constraining power 
of Christ's love, who " died for all, that they which 
live should no longer live unto themselves, but 
unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." 
The church which beyond all others has trusted 
the simplicity and power of this motive has most 
thoroughly wrought into its membership the mis- 
sionary idea. In his admirable lectures upon the 
" Moravian Missions," so careful and intelligent a 
historian as the Rev. A. C. Thompson, D. D., has 
affirmed : " If all Protestant churches had been 
equally devoted, equally enterprising, for the last 
century and a half, not an unevangelized man or 
woman would now remain on earth." 

But some one may possibly suggest : all, then, 
that is necessary now for the promotion of interest 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 187 

in missions is to urge the principles and maxims of 
Moravian piety. At least it is not desirable to pro- 
pose any new theological questions. But this is to 
overlook two facts : Many Christians are not Mo- 
ravians, and we are not raising any new questions. 
To gain in its fullness of power the central motive 
of the Christian life each division of the church 
must take it up for itself into the organic develop- 
ment of its own life. To each true church is given 
its own line of thought, its own sphere of duty, its 
special task, for the good of the whole and for a 
richer and broader unity. The questions we have 
touched upon in their bearing on missions are not 
first propounded by us. They are before the pub- 
lic. They come up in a movement already far ad- 
vanced. They cannot be set aside nor suppressed. 
No greater mistake, as a matter of policy, could be 
made by the friends of missions than to seem to 
wish to avoid them. One of the most pathetic 
touches at the recent seventy-fifth Anniversary of 
the American Board was the allusion of a mission- 
ary to the fact that during the years of this So- 
ciety's history two entire generations of heathen 
had passed away. What of the unnumbered gen- 
erations, the innumerable millions, that have died 
without the gospel ? Once, the advocates of mis- 
sions had a definite answer. They will not repeat 
it. What will they say? What ought they to 
say ? Our suggestion is, that they answer " ac- 
cording to Christianity." 

And one word more upon this point. No prog- 



188 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

ress is conserved save by allowing its principles 
scope and freedom of development. Any attempt 
to arrest their growth in apprehension or practical 
application is an expression of distrust in them, 
and tends to their overthrow. The church, having 
gained the doctrine of the universality of the Atone- 
ment, cannot stop with this advance. To do so 
would be to imperil what it has won. Nor, having 
once learned the lesson of a universal humaneness 
from the " philanthropy" " of God our Saviour," 2 
can it now close or dull its ear to this divine teach- 
ing without peculiar guilt. The Greek Church, in 
its centuries of sterility and decay, is a standing 
warning to any body of Christians that woidd de- 
cline to follow out the principles with which it is 
intrusted to their legitimate conclusions, and thus 
fail to conserve by progress. 

It is a noteworthy and auspicious fact that the 
platforms of the older and the most important mis- 
sionary societies are pledged by their history to all 
that is catholic in Christian belief and fellowship. 
We believe that missions should always be con- 
ducted in this large-minded and large-hearted 
spirit ; that young men should be attracted to such 
service by the grandeur of its aim, and welcomed 
without scrutiny as to their theological opinions be- 
yond what is necessary to ascertain their full accept- 
ance of fundamental Christianity in their beliefs 
and in their consecration of purpose. We would 
raise, as a dividing question, no issue upon the mode 
1 Titus iii. 4. 



CHRISTIANITY AND MISSIONS. 189 

in which God will administer his one system of re- 
deeming grace in its application to those of his 
children who are born in the darkness of heathen- 
ism. But all the more are we strenuous that right 
opinions should prevail as to what the gospel is in 
its universality and completeness, and that no posi- 
tions be taken which in the end will inevitably di- 
minish men's convictions of its supreme authority 
and absolute necessity. And we believe that it is 
by the prevalence of truer conceptions of its univer- 
sal character and relations, in connection with the 
providential opening of the world to its mission 
and the promised gift of the Spirit, that the com- 
ing century — may we not hope and expect, the 
next quarter of a century ? — will show a progress 
in its extension beyond anything as yet realized. 
The thought is full of encouragement and stimu- 
lus, that through the various missionary societies, 
now well organized and conducted by men of large 
experience, the church to-day might lay a hand of 
power and blessing — as it were, the very benedic- 
tion of Christ — on every island and continent of 
the globe. All that is needed is the inspiration 
that alone can lift the church to the level of 
its opportunity. Providence has been developing 
through the century the requisite organizations. It 
is now giving access to every field, however long 
closed and sealed. The continent of Africa is be- 
coming as open to missions as to the sunlight. 
The remotest provinces of China will soon be in 
active commercial relations with Western civiliza- 



190 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

tion. The islands of the Pacific and the continents 
of Asia and Africa will, erelong, be more thor- 
oughly crossed and recrossed by routes of travel 
and traffic than was the Roman Empire when it 
was conquered by the early church. As never be- 
fore the world is prepared for the gospel. Has the 
church a gospel for the world ? 



VIII. 

THE SCRIPTURES. 

What is the Bible ? How did this collection of 
writings come into existence ? What are its distinc- 
tive predicates ? Our inquiry assumes, of course, to 
be made by Christians, and to concern itself with 
one of the facts of a divinely established religion. 
It professes, therefore, to depend upon Christian 
sources for the information of which it is in search. 
Wc must begin by considering what those sources 
are. Evidently they consist, in part at least, of 
the great Christian facts of which the Bible bears 
witness. We know the immediate historical an- 
tecedents of the Scriptures, both in their outward 
appearance and in their higher significance. By 
them we can and must, to some extent, be guided 
in forming our conceptions of how the Scriptures 
were produced, and what they are. Are they to be 
our sole guide, or does Christianity furnish us other 
means of information to be used in connection with 
them ? This is equivalent to asking whether Chris- 
tianity professes to give us as immediate revelation 
information as to the way in which the Scriptures 
were produced, for evidently only information of 
this kind could take its place beside examination 
of the facts out of which they grew. 



192 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Some believe, it is true, that our religion, viewed 
as a whole in its divine character and supreme 
value, gives us the knowledge we are seeking. 
They contend that the book which should convey 
to men the essential content of such a religion must 
have been written in a certain way. For only so, 
they claim, could it have had the power of impres- 
sion necessary to its task. We may be sure, there- 
fore, that God made just such and such a Bible. 
The hope of reaching the goal we are seeking by 
this short cut may be tempting. But can it be in- 
dulged when one considers the assumption it in- 
volves as to man's ability to see all of the ways 
of procedure open to God in establishing his re- 
ligion ? How can any finite mind think itself so 
well acquainted with the sum of historical forces 
as to be able to declare just how a Bible must be 
produced which would best carry the gospel to the 
world? Some general predicates of the written 
vehicle of revelation might perhaps be assumed 
with measurable confidence, but not such as would 
satisfy the desire of the Christian mind and heart. 
Surely the surprises of God's providence should 
have by this time taught us our inability to predict 
just the means by which He will bring his ends to 
pass. 

But we can know just what the Bible is from 
revelation, if we have a revelation about the matter. 
Is this in our possession ? No ; for the Scriptures 
(to Christians the depository of revelation, what- 
ever else they may be) do not undertake to tell 



THE SCRIPTURES. 193 

how they arose, how they were collected into one 
sacred volume, or precisely what they are. The 
exact conception of their distinctive qualities which 
by general consent belongs to complete Christian 
knowledge they do not profess to give. We do 
not forget that some build on their interpretation 
of one familiar passage a different view from this. 
Paul affirms that " every Scripture inspired of God 
is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for cor- 
rection, for instruction which is in righteousness : 
that the man of God may be complete, furnished 
completely unto every good work." That this im- 
plies that in the apostle's view the Old Testament 
Scriptures, whose canon was then settled, were in- 
spired — or " God-breathed" — writings is evident. 
But it is also equally clear that the ascription to 
them of this predicate does not explain to us how 
they became entitled to it, or under what precise 
limitations it is applied to them. Nor can a large 
and all-inclusive declaration of this sort be accepted 
as determinative in respect to a multitude of special 
inquiries which every book of the Old Testament 
suggests, and which are essential to a true judgment 
as to its origin, nature, and value. Every book 
may be profitable for the purposes named by the 
apostle and have been divinely adapted to such 
ends, and still the question may remain unanswered 
as to the method of its production and the special 
place it occupies in the revelation of God's mind 
and will. We are therefore driven back to a study 
of these Scriptures, as well as of those of the later 

13 



194 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Canon, in the historical evidences of their origin 
and nature. 

Possibly, however, some may think that we have 
no right to assume that the antecedent facts fully 
account for the Bible, since, although it is unques- 
tionably to a certain extent their product, a special 
operation of Almighty power, of which we are not 
informed, may have given to it its highest qualities. 
But surely in the absence of a clear revelation that 
such special divine power was employed, we have 
no right to assert its exercise. If without its use 
the Bible as it stands can be accounted for, it be- 
comes unnecessary. And more than this ; is it not 
unreasonable, not to say irreverent, to add a new 
kind of divine activity to those of whose operation 
in establishing the kingdom of God sacred history 
assures us? Christian faith finds a revealing pur- 
pose of God in the manifest order and connections 
of that history. It infers from the teaching of 
prophet and apostle, and the words of One greater 
than they, that the events recorded took place in 
connection with such causes, natural and super- 
natural, as are presented in the sacred narrative, to 
the end that men might see behind the causes God 
disclosing his disposition towards man. Its con- 
viction that this series of facts contains a divine 
object-lesson absolutely forbids it to try to improve 
the teaching by inventing other facts and thrusting 
them into the representation. It says, therefore, 
that if the forces visible in sacred history appear to 
the best human vision to have produced the Bible, 



THE SCRIPTURES. 195 

God must have wished men to believe that they 
did produce it. 

We must seek, then, knowledge of the distinctive 
quality and value of the Scriptures by studying 
God's revelation given in history. A collection of 
literature is before us, — ideas and narratives con- 
veyed by human minds to other minds in human 
language. As Christians we recognize qualities in 
these ideas and narratives which are wanting to 
other literature. We wish to obtain a knowledge 
of these qualities as exact as possible, and try to 
find out what distinguished their authors from other 
men that they could write such books. We know, 
too, from the historical knowledge which belongs 
to our faith that these writings were very intimately 
connected with the great revealing facts. We 
wish to see as clearly as we can what this connec- 
tion was ; in other words, the process by which 
fact-revelation made the Bible. We go back, there- 
fore, to the places and times in which these Scrip- 
tures were composed, and see how they came to be 
written. 

We must at the outset recognize the distinctness 
of the New Testament Scriptures from the Old. 
The question of the comparative religious value of 
their respective contents may be left in abeyance 
while we direct our attention to their historical 
diversity. They are parted by many centuries, they 
group themselves about different centres, they are 
unlike in structure and in language. Though they 
unite to form a higher unity, it is a unity made of 



196 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

the wholes constituted by the union of each group. 
The first owes its value for the church to an event 
which followed its composition, the second to its 
having succeeded and been created by this same 
event. We must therefore approach them sepa- 
rately to find out how they came to be. The fact 
that the New Testament lies the nearer to us, and 
that we are better informed respecting the circum- 
stances under which it was written, would natu- 
rally lead us to turn first to it, apart from any feel- 
ing we might have as to its greater value. 

We naturally begin with its oldest books, the 
earliest literary product of the life of the apostolic 
church, the apostolic Epistles. They are chiefly 
pastoral letters, written to various Christian com- 
munities by their respective authors, who were in 
most cases the founders of the churches addressed. 
They belong to the apostolic teaching, and had for 
their immediate readers, and all future ones, just, 
the claim which their authors had. Whatever is 
peculiar in their composition, or extraordinary in 
their value, is to be found in the apostolic teaching 
generally. For there is not a scintilla of evidence 
that God assumed to the minds of the apostles a 
new relation as soon as they sat down to write, and 
that, in consequence, what they wrote had a differ- 
ent quality from what they said. St. Paul sent a 
letter to the Galatians censuring them for falling 
away from the doctrine of justification by faith 
which they had received from him, and vehemently 
reasserting it as the central doctrine of the gospel. 



THE SCRIPTURES. 197 

It is absurd to suppose that he expected his read- 
ers to find in the written inculcation of the doc- 
trine a divineness which they had not perceived in 
the oral presentation of it. " Why, then," they 
might have fairly asked, " does he blame us so 
severely for having lost our regard for it, since it 
was originally communicated to us in a more earthy 
and inadequate form ? " And the tenor of the letter 
is entirely inconsistent with any such theory. It 
says that Paul's preaching is the utterance of the 
revelation of Christ, which he bore, and attaches 
to that preaching the whole weight of his apostolic 
authority. The presumption of the truthf ulness of 
the oral teaching, and its supreme value, underlies 
the whole Epistle. The letter would have lost 
power by making its readers feel that it added to 
the essential content of the instruction. " Though 
w r e, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto 
you any gospel other than that which we preached 
unto you, let him be anathema." " Foolish Gala- 
tians, who did bewitch you, before whose eyes Je- 
sus Christ was openly set forth crucified ? " The 
same assumption of identity between the oral and 
written teaching is found in the other letters of 
Paul. He takes pains to assure the Corinthian 
church that he wields the apostolic spiritual force 
quite as resolutely and effectively in bodily pres- 
ence as through the pen, — an assertion plainly in- 
compatible with his believing that he gave a purer 
truth when he w r rote. In the Epistle to the Romans 
he expresses the desire to visit his readers in order 



198 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

to impart a spiritual gift, which even this crowning 
letter of his life would not bring to them. We 
should not dwell upon what seems to us so obvious 
but for the fact that the assumption of a special 
activity of the divine Spirit upon the apostles and 
other writers of Scripture in the act of composi- 
tion, endowing what came from their pens with 
qualities possessed by no other Christian teaching, 
is a most fruitful source of confusion in the en- 
deavor to find out what Scripture is. It is insisted 
not only that is there no evidence of such an act, 
but that the supposition of its existence is contrary 
to facts which lie on the face of the Scriptures. It 
is claimed that we have no more right to discrim- 
inate between the written and the oral teaching of 
Paul as different in kind than between those of any 
other public teacher. It is asserted that the pecul- 
iar and supernatural qualities which belonged to 
any one part of his teaching belonged essentially 
to it all. Not that those qualities dwelt in every 
part of it in the same degree. No doubt the stress 
of special circumstances or extraordinary impulses 
from the Spirit, or, still more likely, both, some- 
times lent unusual clearness and penetration to his 
utterance of divine truth. Passages in some of his 
letters can be pointed out, to which Christian sen- 
timent has always attached peculiar importance. 
Some of his Epistles are more elaborate, some more 
eloquent, some more complete in respect to the de- 
velopment of certain leading truths than others. 
Very likely he always put truth into a more com- 



THE SCRIPTURES. 199 

pact form when he wrote. But such incidental and 
formal peculiarities of his letters must be passed 
over if we are to ascertain what they really are. 
We must go back to the man from whom they 
came and study his situation, calling, and spiritual 
endowments. 

He and his fellow apostles had personal ac- 
quaintance of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of them 
except Paul had known the mighty power of his 
personal influence and example, culminating in his 
passion. They had been taken possession of by the 
new divine life which poured down upon the world 
at Pentecost, and were " full of the Holy Ghost." 
Paul's case was different from theirs, yet not so 
different as at first appears. He knew Christ in 
person, for he saw Him before Damascus with his 
own eyes. That contact with the Lord on the out- 
ward plane of life, knowing Him to be the Lord, 
was, in its peculiar influence upon the spirit, the 
essential fact qualifying for apostleship. It gave a 
grasp of the fact of Incarnation, it gave a tension 
to Christian conviction which could come from 
nothing else. One must have seen the old dispen- 
sation passing over into the new to have the most 
vivid possible conviction that it had done so. One 
must have laid eyes upon Christ in order to have 
the freshest and most stimulating possible sense of 
his having been here. This the apostles had, — 
and they had besides the qualification for Christian 
preaching, only second to this, of having grown up 
as Jews. All the results of the divine revelation 



200 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

and training in Judea were gathered up in their 
spiritual history. They could appreciate Christ in 
his connection with the past (without which the 
revelation made in Him was only a glorious frag- 
ment) as only Christian Jews could do. 

These qualifications would have been of little 
service had they not been made effective by the su- 
pernatural gift imparted to their possessors. The 
apostles were the bearers of a revelation made im- 
mediately to each of them by the Spirit of God. 
Of the fact of such revelation they were conscious ; 
by their consciousness of it the form of their teach- 
ing is moulded. We turn to their religious life 
and study this wonderful experience in the light of 
their own testimony, in the hope of gaining such a 
knowledge of it as shall lead to an adequate con- 
ception of the nature of the teaching which flowed 
from it. 

The fundamental characteristic of the revelation 
borne by each apostle was its vitality. It was an 
essential part of the spiritual life. The gift received 
by the infant church on Pentecost was not merely 
the bestowal of this or that capacity ; it was that 
of living in a new and higher way. Out of its 
quickened and mightily invigorated life leaped its 
new deeds of heroic devotion. From this fresh and 
ever-renewed fountain flowed its teaching. The 
apostles began to preach Christ because new con- 
ceptions of Him had come into their hearts, and 
were struggling for utterance there. A new type 
of teaching begins with Peter's Pentecostal sermon. 



THE SCRIPTURES. 201 

The essential elements of all distinctively Christian 
utterance are found in it. It is said to be the fruit 
of the new life. " The apostles gave their witness 
of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Paul says 
that the revelation of Christ which was the source 
of his preaching, and the ground of its authority, 
was given in his conversion. " When it was the 
good pleasure of God ... to reveal his Son in 
me that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, 
... I conferred not with flesh and blood," etc., 
etc. The light into which he was born was that 
from which he taught. 

The revelation of which each apostle was the 
bearer is not, therefore, to be thought of as a set of 
religious ideas made over to him to be held as an 
external possession. The man could not be himself 
without having it ; he could not give it without giv- 
ing his life with it. For it was in essence a per- 
sonal experience of Jesus Christ in and through 
whom he lived. God had made his consummated 
revelation of Himself in the Incarnation a glorious 
reality in this man's spirit. He appreciated the 
historic personality of Jesus Christ as a part of the 
divine life, and as having most vital relations to his 
own life and that of the world. lie saw in it the 
consummation of the theocracy to which he had be- 
longed, and the corner-stone of the new kingdom 
of God whose foundations he was laying. He rec- 
ognized in it the fulfillment of prophecy and the 
key of history. Out of such a knowledge, a knowl- 
edge having its seat not in the mind merely or 



202 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

chiefly, but in the whole renewed personality, the 
apostles preached and taught. 

The vital nature of the knowledge is reproduced 
in the vitality of the teaching. This quality chiefly 
distinguishes the apostolic Epistles and the other 
distinctively spiritual books of sacred Scripture 
from all other Christian literature. Nothing else 
ever written shows personality so penetrated by the 
truth of Christ. You may try to draw out the 
teachings of one of John's Epistles into other forms 
of statement, and you will find your task as hope- 
less as the endeavor to extract just the perfume of 
the rose from its crushed petals. You may obtain 
another very pleasant odor, but not that fragrance. 
The truth in the Scripture statement has a delicate 
aroma which we find in the Scripture alone. 

In saying that the apostolic teaching is the ex- 
pression of the spiritual life of its authors and 
wears the impress of their respective personalities, 
we do not take one jot or tittle from its sacredness 
as a revelation. If God be pleased to convey truth 
to man in a way other than by the immediate con- 
tact of his Spirit with the individual human spirit, 
He must use some external medium, and if the 
communication is to be of a more connected and 
influential kind than that made by the sign lan- 
guage of nature, the medium employed must be in 
some sense human. It must, at least, be expressed 
in words which man has made to convey his ideas, 
and which partake, therefore, of the limitations 
and imperfections of those ideas. Now, if it should 



THE SCRIPTURES. 203 

please God to produce a book of oracles by sheer 
and stark miracle, or to dictate the contents of one 
to a scribe or number of scribes, the teaching would 
not come more directly from Him than when a -*^r 0%ri 
soul in vital contact with Him freely utters, under 
the leading of his Spirit, the truth which is the ele- 
ment in which it lives. In this latter case He con- 
trols and shapes the teaching. Whatever of man 
is in it is there as his medium of expression. If it 
is given when the man in whom it dwells pleases, 
it is when God pleases, too, for the will of this or- 
gan of revelation is gladly responsive to God's life. 
But we need not argue the case on the ground 
of a 'priori possibility ; we have all that we con- 
tend for in the great Christian facts. The teach- 
ing of our Lord was his, and it was the Father's. 
To deny it any of the essential qualities of human 
teaching is simply to deny the essential qualities of 
his humanity and to reject the Incarnation. If it 
was the utterance of a human mind and heart, it 
shows that God can reveal himself through a hu- 
man life ; nay, that such a life is the best medium 
of his revelation, for there is no divineness in 
Christ's words which does not find expression 
through their humanity. And he who doubts that 
redeemed men can be so brought into the life of 
God that they, too, shall be worthy bearers of his 
revelation must deal with Christ's words : " Sanc- 
tify them in the truth : thy word is truth. As 
thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I 
them into the world." It is, therefore, with these 



204 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

Scriptures as with the person of our Lord, the 
union of the divine and human in whom they im- 
perfectly resemble and typify. To deny their es- 
sential humanity is to take away their divineness. 
For as the divine is subtracted from Christ by re- 
moving from Him the human soul which is its 
dwelling-place and point of contact with man, so a 
mechanical view of man's agency in revealing di- 
vine truth implies the denial of a living connection 
of God with the Christian life, — yes, — -and the 
denial of the central fact on which that life rests. 

We do not urge this as defending a theory of the 
nature of Scripture which is on trial before the bar 
of speculative reason, but to take away any linger- 
ing unwillingness to look at the plain facts of the 
case. For the humanity of the Scripture is so ap- 
parent that no one can help finding in it the freely 
evolved product of its authors' religious life, whose 
eyes are not holden by dogmatic prejudice. The 
apostolic letters are preeminent in literature for 
the degree in which they wear the stamp of their 
authors' individuality. 

And this we regard an essential condition of 
their unequaled excellence. Our reverence for 
man is such that we can easily believe the best me- 
dium for conveying God's truth to the world to be 
a human life filled and inspired by this truth. 
And when we come under the influence of the 
apostolic letters we feel that their vitality penetra- 
ting the truth is of the very essence of their dis- 
closing power. It is not so much that we draw 



THE SCRIPTURES. 205 

ideas about God out of them, as that we touch God 
himself in them, because the life with which they 
palpitate is fed in its central springs by his own. 
It is not merely in what they say that they reveal 
God to us, but in what they suggest. The Chris- 
tian conception of things in general, of men living 
together in God through Christ and for Christ, a 
society in the world and destined to possess the 
whole of it, yet not of the world, — what this means 
viewed from the interior and central point of vis- 
ion, what this means when not only seen but felt 
in every fibre of the being, — all this, which we 
could not find in mere didactic utterance, we do 
find in the apostolic revelation. 

Then, too, the variety furnished by the personal 
element in the teaching of the apostles contributes 
fullness and richness to the revelation. It is God 
that is to be revealed : a life flowing out upon a 
sinful race in redeeming and self-communicating 
love ; a life rich and manifold beyond conception 
in its connections with the life of man. 

The Incarnation is the essential revelation : but 
the Incarnation is more than the presence of the 
man Christ Jesus on earth, and the things he did 
and suffered. This the unbelieving Jews had. It 
is the fact of union between the divine and the 
human, the awful "mystery of godliness;" it is the 
relation of this union to the life of man and the 
life of God. It must take place before man can 
know God. Man cannot know it when it has 
taken place unless he have God's help. " In Christ 



206 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY, 

are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge." 

The Spirit showed the things of Christ unto his 
apostles. The revelation must shape itself to the 
personality of each recipient. That which is re- 
vealed in Christ is God in his work of redemption ; 
and, because the knowledge gained is vital knowl- 
edge, it must vary with the temperament of each 
writer, for each human soul is by its constitution 
especially fitted to appropriate certain elements of 
God's character and to appreciate the revelation of 
these made in his treatment of the world. Hence 
Paul's apprehension of God in Christ could not be 
identical with John's. Again, we appeal to fact, 
and insist that the subtle diversity of the apostolic 
teaching is as undeniable as its fundamental unity. 
The writings of John add no new doctrine to that 
given in the Pauline letters ; but if they were blotted 
out the Christian revelation would lose a very pre- 
cious element — the Johannean conception of the 
gospel, preeminent for ethical depth and force. 
No other mind could so present Christianity as a 
fellowship of God with man in holy love. Through 
no other medium does the truth come with such 
splendor as when it streams through this transparent 
spirit. We hold with Neander that Paul, John, 
Peter, and James (whom we may be permitted to 
class among the apostles), each represents a dis- 
tinct and permanent type of character, and that, in 
making each the bearer of a separate revelation, 
the design of God to give men a conception of the 



THE SCRIPTURES. 207 

truth in Jesus rich in its manifoldness is distinctly 
manifest. 

It will be asked, "If the revelation partake of 
the characteristics of the man through whom it is 
given, must it not share his imperfection ? " If by 
imperfection be meant such defect of character as 
is implied in the lack of ideal symmetry, we answer, 
Yes. The many years spent in Pharisaic bondage 
must have left an abiding influence upon St. Paul's 
character ; for grace cannot miraculously obliterate 
slow moral growths. We could not but expect that 
his bitter experience should have led him to find in 
the doctrine of justification by faith a relative 
prominence which it would not wear to any who 
had not borne a chain like his. But this feature 
of his apprehension of the gospel is not its weak- 
ness, but its strength, because it is seen to belong 
to the man, and to be implied in the experience 
which fitted him as no one else could be fitted to 
declare the gospel of righteousness through faith. 

If the question mean, " Must not such sin as 
still dwelt in the apostles have tinged their relig- 
ious conceptions and teaching with error ? " — we 
reply, This could not have been unless they w r ere 
more under the influence of moral evil than we 
have any reason to suppose them to have been. 
The effect of sin upon the perceptive faculties lags 
behind its influence upon the will. Men usually 
know better than they do. The best of men are 
the most penitent, for the elevation of their moral 
standard outstrips even their improvement in con- 
duct. 



/ 



\ 



208 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

We cannot, therefore, correctly measure the 
purity of the religious conceptions which the apos- 
tles had, by comparing their lives with the absolute 
standard of human goodness. That their teaching 
was not vitiated by such moral defects as still clung 
to them is plainly shown by the fact that the most 
conspicuous fault committed by any one of them 
after Pentecost, so far as our knowledge goes, and 
one which bore the closest relations to the trans- 
gressor's conception of a vital religious truth, was 
not reflected in his teaching. Nothing in Peter's 
Epistles would lead one to infer that he had dis- 
sembled to the Judaizers at a critical juncture in 
the history of the church. 1 

We can hardly believe, indeed, that the truth as 
revealed through the apostles had such absolute 
purity as we must suppose it to have had if perfect 
beings had been the media of revelation. We must 
recognize a certain quality in the words of our Lord, 
— a brilliant and serene lustre, a perfectness of 
proportion, which we cannot find even in theirs. 
We sometimes discover in their successive letters 
signs of progress into more adequate conceptions ; 
as, for example, in Paul's teachings concerning 
marriage. In some rare cases one side of a truth 
is so frankly presented that only by finding a cor- 
relate elsewhere are we saved from misconception ; 
as in James's teaching concerning justification. 
But the slight blemishes in the very finest optical 
instruments do not prevent our obtaining from 
them data which to the human mind of finest train- 
1 Ladd, Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, ii. 424. 



THE SCRIPTURES. 209 

ing are exceedingly exact ; and when we recollect 
that the imperfection of the organ of revelation is 
the correlate of qualities which give especial fitness 
to reveal God's truth to man, we may dismiss the 
question of absolute perfection in the apostolic 
teaching as having no living interest. Christ knew 
the sort of revelation which would come through 
Paul and John when He chose them to reveal Him, 
and we must rest content with his selection. 

The views of Christ and of his truth contained 
in the apostolic Epistles must, from the nature of 
the case, always shape the religious and moral con- 
ceptions of the church. Not that they alone pos- 
sessed the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. He is 
the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in every soul 
in which He dwells, and there have been some souls 
in ages since the apostolic into which He has so 
abundantly shed the radiance of God's truth that 
they have been the spiritual luminaries of their 
own and following centuries. But in this matter 
of revelation man is never isolated from his fellow. 
God has so made us that every one in the brother- 
hood of believers must receive spiritual light from 
his fellow man in the very act of receiving it from 
above. The prophets were dependent upon the 
conceptions of God given to their predecessors ; the 
apostles were continually drawing knowledge from 
the Old Testament Scriptures and from the words 
of Christ. No teacher in the church has ever 
arisen or can ever arise so filled with the Spirit as 
not to depend upon the apostles for conceptions of 
14 



210 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

God. We can see that their situation and their 
exceptionally exalted life make following teachers 
dependent upon them as they were not dependent 
upon any predecessor except Christ ; that their 
conceptions of our Lord are the framework into 
which all the subsequent thoughts of his church 
about Him and his work must be set, and the norm 
by which the teaching of the church must shape 
itself. 

This follows of necessity from their historical re- 
lation to the Incarnation. They were living links 
by which God Incarnate was joined to the life of 
the world. That the world might know Him in 
the divine humanit}^, there must be some men inti- 
mate with Him, w r hose personal acquaintance should 
be expanded and purified by the inner revelation 
of the Spirit, so that they could tell the world who 
it was that they had known. " That which was 
from the beginning, that which we have heard, that 
which we have seen with our eyes, that which we 
beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the 
Word of life . . . declare we unto you also." The 
relations in which the apostles stood to the previous 
history of the world and to its contemporaneous life 
were a part of their peculiar qualification for pre- 
senting Christ to mankind. He stood in such im- 
mediate connection with the past that no one could 
adequately know Him who did not know the facts 
of which He was on the human side a part. Juda- 
ism was in its flower in Him, and no one could fully 
know this part of Him who did not know Judaism 



THE SCRIPTURES. 211 

from the inside. He was the explanation of the re- 
lation which the Hebrew nation bore to the life of 
the race, and no one could adequately give the ex- 
planation who did not know by personal experience 
the strength and the weakness of Hebraism. In a 
word, the Incarnation is not really apprehended 
until it is apprehended in its historical setting, 
and only those who saw that setting with their own 
eyes could worthily describe it. We add to these 
qualifications that of preeminent endowment of the 
Holy Spirit. We would gladly cherish the thought 
that other teachers might arise, from whom should 
flow even more copious streams of living water 
than those which welled from the hearts of the 
apostles. But we are compelled to regard the cir- 
cumstances of their lives as excluding such a hope. 
We cannot think the gift of the Spirit a sheer mir- 
acle of power. We must believe that as a bestowal 
of the divine life it has its appropriate and essen- 
tial conditions in mutual relations existing between 
the human life and the divine. And we cannot 
help believing that the conditions of its bestowment 
existed in a degree absolutely unique in the days 
just following the resurrection of our Lord ; that 
after the amazing act of divine love for man then 
consummated there should follow immediately a 
surpassing influx of divine life into the world ; 
that the divine humanity of Jesus should, through 
the Spirit, have its most intense power upon the 
race at its point of historic contact with it. The 
church, we believe, has always felt and will always 



212 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

feel that there can never be another Pentecost, as 
there can never be another Calvary. 

For these reasons we hold that the conceptions 
of Christ presented in the apostolic revelation are 
not only the most vivid, but the most comprehensive 
and the most just which any minds in this stage of 
being can have. We believe that these men were 
so placed and so gifted that they saw Christ's na- 
ture and relations to man with both more penetra- 
ting and broader vision than that of any other 
seers ; that the main features of his life and mis- 
sion, the truths of his eternal being, the outlines of 
his historical relations, were mirrored in their minds 
with such just perspective that we must seek all 
our knowledge of Christ within the limits and un- 
der the outlines of their teaching. The church is 
ever adding to its knowledge of Christ, and the ex- 
egetical process is certainly not the exclusive means 
of making the increment. Out of mere study of 
books did not come its growing knowledge of 
Christ's relation to God, and to mankind, nor its 
conception of the breadth of his redeeming work. 
Such a product shows the revealing presence of the 
Spirit. But in making the revelation He has used, 
as the facts show, He could not but use, as the 
Christian reason shows, the apostolic teaching as 
the constant medium of revelation, the ever-present 
helper and guide of the advancing mind. The 
greatest thinkers of the church have found them- 
selves in all their thinking, in closest sympathy 
with and dependence upon the apostolic teaching. 



THE SCRIPTURES. 213 

They have been able to carry out its conceptions of 
Christ into fuller form and more intricate connec- 
tions. They have never been able to correct one 
of those conceptions, nor to place another beside 
them in the inner circle of revelation. It is the 
fulfillment of Christ's promise to lead his apostles 
into the whole truth. It is the authority of his 
representatives bearing its own credentials in the 
supreme sway which their words wield over the 
Christian mind. 

What, now, of the historical books of the New 
Testament ? They are true narratives in w r hich 
the facts described appear in spiritual content as 
well as outward form. The synoptic Gospels con- 
tain the apostolic tradition about Christ, gathered 
from various sources and wrought into narratives, 
in each of which a deep religious appreciation of 
his Person and mission is evident. The historical 
proof connecting the sayings and acts of our Lord 
with the recollections of the apostolic circle is un- 
impeachable. Christian faith confirms it, declar- 
ing that the character showing itself in these deeds 
and words can be no other than that of the super- 
human person whom it calls Lord. The subtle 
blending of the materials before each evangelist 
into a delineation of our Lord's life in one of its 
leading relations to the life of man shows that each 
worked from a vivid conception of Christ given by 
the revealing Spirit. 

Of purely miraculous communication to these ^ 
writers of any of their material, there is no evi- 



\ 



214 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

dence. We may well believe that the spiritual ex- 
altation of the apostolic circle in the early days of 
the church would bring back to their recollection 
the words of their Master with preternatural vivid- 
ness. We must also recollect that their spiritual 
sympathy with Christ's teachings would certainly 
prevent them from attributing to Him any teaching 
or deed not worthy of his character. We have 
here ample guaranty of the essential accuracy of 
the apostolic tradition. If we cannot predicate its 
absolute perfection, if we must attribute some de- 
viation from accuracy even to the process of trans- 
lation from Aramaic into Greek, we must remem- 
ber that this living way of preserving our Lord's 
sayings and deeds gives these memoirs the simplic- 
ity and artlessness and lifelikeness in which they 
far surpass all other biographies. What has been 
said of the synoptic Gospels may be said of the 
Acts. There is not the slightest internal or ex- 
ternal reason for pronouncing it a history set down 
from miraculous divine dictation. It claims to be 
a continuation of Luke's Gospel, and probably 
rests in part, like that, upon earlier documents. It 
is to be regarded as true to the facts and the life 
in the facts. It could only have been written by 
one taught by the Spirit to know the events nar- 
rated in their true meaning and value. 

Of St. John's Gospel, written to show the out- 
lines of Christ's life as it lay transfigured in the 
mind of the beloved apostle, the divine glory stream- 
ing through every word and deed, we have only to 



THE SCRIPTURES. 215 

say that in it lie two distinct elements of divine 
knowledge, the two most precious of all, the teach- 
ing of the Master and of the most spiritual of his 
disciples. We need not stay to discuss the remain- 
ing books of the New Testament Canon. The 
church has placed them beside the apostolic writ- 
ings because it has believed them to possess the 
apostolic qualities. That no other ground can be 
successfully urged for the right of an anonymous 
scripture like the Epistle to the Hebrews to a place 
in the Canon is evident. That the general con- 
sensus of the church in the canonicity of this or 
any writing has the strongest claim to respect, all 
Christians will admit. That the judgment so given 
can add nothing to the intrinsic value of such a 
letter, all Protestants must hold. But they also 
agree in believing it the best of reasons for de- 
voutly seeking in such a writing the mind of 
Christ. 

We cannot extend our inquiry to the Old Testa- 
ment. The quantity of material to be dealt with 
here is so great, and the unsolved problems so nu- 
merous and intricate, that any attempt to show the 
nature of its structure from the correlated facts, not 
covering many more pages than are left to us, would 
be absolutely worthless. 

We feel the limitation the more keenly from our 
conviction that just here the claims of our method 
need especial vindication. A fault in discussions 
about the nature of Scripture, which has been, per- 
haps, more insnaring than almost any other, is the 



216 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

habit of drawing its predicates from the study of 
the New Testament alone. We must make our 
protest against this practice by heartily acknowl- 
edging that our work is defective according to the 
standard which we have ourselves set up. One 
cannot fitly answer the question " What is the 
Bible?" until he has examined the contents of 
each Canon. He has no more right to characterize 
an Old Testament Scripture from any New Testa- 
ment Scripture than to regard the office of a He- 
brew prophet as identical with that of an apostle 
of Jesus Christ. What though he may recognize 
in the genesis of either composition a supernatural 
element ? He has no more right to say that the 
patent historical differences do not enter into the 
very nature of the writing than that Paul's work 
and Isaiah's were essentially the same. 

The practice of interpreting the Old Testament 
by assumed New Testament canons has made the 
former seem lifeless and unintelligible, and caused 
many of the more inquiring minds of the church to 
cease trying to gain an intelligent and comprehen- 
sive knowledge of its contents. This has wrought 
the great mischief of impairing the church's knowl- 
edge of Holy Scripture, the New Testament as 
well as the Old ; not only because the New can-, 
not be understood except through the help of the 
Old, but because the Old Testament rightly stud- 
ied gives a weapon with which to break the crust 
of formalism w T hich had grown upon the New. 
The thorough investigation of the former now go- 



THE SCRIPTURES, 217 

ing on under the spur of rationalistic criticism 
will, under God, result in a new examination of 
the latter in its historical connections which will 
give a great impulse to Christian thought and life. 
While we cannot attempt to give even in outline 
the fresh conception of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures in their relation to the earlier revelation, 
which later scholarship is creating, we cannot leave 
unnoticed the especial objections to the use of 
the historic method upon them which just now 
are influential with some minds, lest we be sus- 
pected of trying to escape difficulties. One of these 
grows out of the belief that Christ's authority is 
committed to a certain view of the authorship of 
the Old Testament. " It is not necessary, it is not 
reverent, to undertake to find out by searching that 
which He has already taught us." We are obliged 
to deny the assumed fact. Christ, we believe, did 
not undertake to teach his disciples what the Old 
Testament was as Scripture, that is, to show how 
as written composition it is related to the revela- 
tion of which it gives information. He did wish 
himself to be understood, we cheerfully admit, as 
regarding the sacred writings of the Jews as the 
depository not only of instructive fact, but of relig- 
ious teaching which had a peculiar connection 
with the divine mind ; but He has neither taught 
nor intimated the existence of any special kind of 
connection between revelation and authorship. We 
shall be reminded of his saying that David spoke 
in the Spirit when he called Him Lord. But it 



218 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

surely does not follow, from his teaching that a 
Messianic Psalm was written under immediate 
divine impulse, that He held all the books of the 
Old Testament to have been composed under sim- 
ilar conditions. Nor does He say what relation the 
Psalm bears to the special revelation given to its 
author, whether it was dictated to him, or he was 
left to work out his inspired conception into literary 
form by conscious elaboration ; whether the con- 
tents of the Psalm came in one moment of exalta- 
tion, or had long lain in his mind. 

" But certainly," it may be said, " when our 
Lord told the Pharisees that ' the Scripture cannot 
be broken ' (A^w), He lent his authority to a certain 
conception of its composition. For to say that its 
every statement carries divine authority is to say 
that the divine mind so immediately controlled the 
action of all the human minds employed in pro- 
ducing it that its authorship is simply God's act." 
The argument rightly assumes that such a divine 
sanction of each statement made by these Scrip- 
tures implies a specific way of writing them ; 
namely, by setting down words divinely dictated. 
But we cannot accept the construction thus put 
upon this saying of Christ. For it would make 
the saying flatly contradictory of those other teach- 
ings in which He criticises and amends certain 
statements of the Old Testament as to men's moral 
obligation. They are as plainly a part of its teach- 
ing as the profounder spiritual teaching of the 
Psalms. We feel confident, therefore, that our 



THE SCRIPTURES. 219 

Lord meant no more by the words under discus- 
sion than an explicit recognition of the Old Tes- 
tament Scriptures as the source of spiritual knowl- 
edge for the Jewish nation. 

Another cause of repugnance to the historical 
way of finding out what the Old Testament is (one 
very effective, we believe, with Christians who are 
not professional students) is the assumed insuffi- 
ciency of the data. " We are so far from the 
events which produced even the very latest of the 
Hebrew Scriptures ; no treatise has come down to 
us which throws such light upon the circumstances 
and conditions of their authorship as the Acts 
throws upon that of the apostolic Epistles ; the 
range which they unitedly traverse is so immense ; 
there is so little in the books themselves that re- 
veals their structure, — it is hopeless to try to in- 
fer from them and from what they say how they 
came to be written." Yes, to infer as much as we 
know about the genesis of the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans. But many of these Scriptures only deal with 
historical facts, often lying remote from the au- 
thor's life and ascertained from secondary sources. 
These obviously have comparatively little that is 
subjective to be accounted for. But we find in the 
phenomena even of these writings ground for cer- 
tain large and definite inferences concerning the 
relation of their respective authors to the facts 
narrated, and to the great spiritual fact of which 
every event in the history of the Hebrew people 
was a part. We may safely infer from them that 



220 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

a book which describes the death of Moses was not, 
all at least, written by Moses ; that a narrative 
which contains two accounts of the creation was 
made — to some extent, at any rate — by editing 
ancient documents ; and that an exalted predic- 
tion of the Messianic kingdom was not written in 
the same spiritual condition with that in which a 
compilation of proverbs was made. And, speak- 
ing generally, the phenomena of these Scriptures 
furnish sufficient data for ascertaining the inter- 
nal relation in which their respective author or 
authors stood towards the divine revelation car- 
ried in the advancing life of the Hebrew nation. 
For these writings all breathe the religious spirit. 
Even those of them which deal exclusively with 
historical events describe those events with devout 
aim and pious feeling. The collection of national 
proverbs reflects a mind which viewed earthly pru- 
dence chiefly from a religious standpoint. And 
so far as an author shows a religious apprehension 
of the events of which he treats, and especially of 
those of them with which he is in immediate con- 
tact, so far of course does it appear that the re- 
vealing Spirit dwelling in and fostering the na- 
tional life has made him its especial organ. The 
revelation which God made in Israel consisted, as 
another has well said, of two distinct elements : 
national experiences, and the interpretation of these 
experiences by men gifted with supernatural insight 
into the meaning of Jewish history. It is the judg- 
ment of the Christian church that the Old Tes- 



THE SCRIPTURES. 221 

tament historians show the possession of this gift, 
so preeminently displayed by the great prophets. 
We infer, then, the spiritual endowment of the au- 
thor from his work, as in the case of the author of 
the third Gospel and the Acts. Finding God's re- 
vealing purpose in the facts as he tells them to 
us, we find it especially manifest in the disposi- 
tion of the narrating mind. 

The distinctness with which the prophetical books 
reveal the historical function and the religious life 
of their respective authors hardly needs to be 
pointed out. That conception of the prophet which 
regarded him as merely a voice, uttering words 
which his own inner life had no share in produc- 
ing, is rapidly disappearing before the intelligent 
study of the Old Testament. We are finding out 
that the seat of the prophetic teaching was the 
moral and religious nature of the inspired seer, 
alone. Studying the national exigencies which 
called out the teaching of the greater prophets, and 
entering into the historical relations of their words, 
we have felt ourselves entering into the spirit of 
the writings as we became acquainted with the wri- 
ters. It is not denied that they were sometimes 
evidently conscious of receiving special messages 
from God. Nor would we claim that the concep- 
tions of God's kingdom in its present state and 
coming development, given them by the Spirit, 
were so fully wrought into their own thinking as 
the apostles' conceptions of Christ and his king- 
dom were united with their own thought. Just 



y 



222 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

here is the inferiority of the earlier stage of rev- 
elation shown, in that the supernatural revelation 
had not fully penetrated and appropriated the nat- 
ural faculties even of those in whom God's Spirit 
dwelt most fully. But it is claimed that the pro- 
phetic teaching was, like the apostolic, essentially 
pervaded by its authors' personality, and that in 
proportion as we find ourselves discovering God's 
mind in this teaching, we find it informing and 
illumining the mind of the prophet. This shows 
us that we have only to go on learning more fully 
what each prophet was, in his work for his people 
and his devotion to his people's God, to learn more 
fully the distinctive quality of his teaching. All 
the information we need as to the special relation 
his writings and those of his fellow prophets re- 
spectively bore to the divine revelation to Israel, 
and bear to the larger revelation given to the 
Christian church, lies before us in the Old Testa- 
ment, if only we are not too indolent or too deeply 
prejudiced to seek it there. 

How plainly the self-revealing power of Scrip- 
ture appears in the Psalms ! What does the church 
really care for a theory as to the way in which they 
were produced ? It hears the music of God's voice 
speaking in the hearts whose penitence, doubt, as- 
piration, gratitude, joy, they express, and knows 
that they came from Him. It is pure scholasti- 
cism to try to find an explanation of the fifty-first 
Psalm in any other thing than the heart whose 
penitence pulses through it. And the Messianic 



THE SCRIPTURES. 223 

Psalms will tell what they mean, and how God re- 
vealed himself in them, if we will not insist upon 
inventing a theory as to how they were made and 
trying to get out of them an interpretation which 
justifies this theory. 

A third and yet more influential source of un- 
willingness to rely on historical methods for knowl- 
edge of what the Old Testament writings specifi- 
cally are, is the belief that the free use of this 
method (and it is rightly assumed that any use of 
it implies the right to use it freely) imperils re- 
ligious interests. It is rightly felt that problems 
of authorship cannot be solved without attempting 
the solution of the historical problems underlying 
them, and it is said that scholars in trying to solve 
the latter may draw from the phenomena of the 
Old Testament conclusions prejudicial to the trust- 
worthiness of some of its writings, and so give 
Christian faith (one of whose vital elements is 
confidence in all of them as essentially truthful) a 
deadly wound. 

This objection implies either that those who raise 
it have no faith in the capacity which historical 
science supposes itself to possess of reaching sound 
conclusions, or that they do believe that it has this 
capacity, and fear that if it were employed upon 
the Old Testament Scriptures, it would draw from 
them conclusions perilous to Christian faith. The 
latter alternative is ruled out by our conviction that 
we are addressing heartily believing minds. Tak- 
ing the former, we ask why it should be thought 



224 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

that the pursuit of historical science is an insnaring 
process, and that historical scholars must be dupes ? 
Why pass such a judgment upon this single one of 
the departments of investigation ? 

Do we find any reason in the nature of its sub- 
ject for assuming that the mind of man, which acts 
rationally in contact with other themes, will be- 
come insane as soon as it approaches this one ? 
Surely there seems to be no reason why men should 
all have a mental disease showing itself just here. 
Do we find, then, on examining the work of his- 
torical students, that its manifest (though unac- 
countable) irrationality shows that the human mind 
cannot safely touch this class of subjects ? No one 
can answer the question in the affirmative without 
folly who has not mastered the critical and con- 
structive methods which modern history has fash- 
ioned, and gained extensive knowledge of its em- 
ployment of them. Whoever has closely watched 
the application of those methods to Hebrew history 
will know that the process has not been irrational. 
He will have seen a progressing accumulation of 
significant facts and successive deductions steadily 
advancing in clearness and adequacy to explain the 
facts. As in other departments of science, he will 
have seen theory replacing theory as the facts have 
become better known and their mutual relations 
more clearly perceived. And we venture to affirm 
that if he be not prevented by prejudice from giv- 
ing to the operations of the human mind in this 
department of knowledge such confidence as he 



THE SCRIPTURES. 225 

bestows on its action when applied to other depart- 
ments, or to the conduct of affairs, he will conclude 
that the facts noted are not will-of-the-wisps, but 
real facts ; that the principles used in accounting 
for them have been rational principles, and that in 
applying principles to facts steady progress has 
been made towards sound conclusions. 

We are speaking now, as throughout the discus- 
sion, from the Christian point of view, and assum- 
ing that those who are examining this class of facts 
have no inaptitude for perceiving the spiritual re- 
alities immediately connected with them. Of the 
scholars who have sought to give these facts scien- 
tific construction, some have made a presentation 
widely at variance with the conception of Hebrew 
history which belongs to Christian writers. But 
these writers avowedly maintain a mental attitude 
towards all that claims to be supernatural which is 
not that of Christianity. We regard ourselves as 
justified in suspending judgment as to their con- 
clusions, in the suspicion that this mental bias may 
have warped their treatment of the facts, until 
the case shall have been fully tried before the bar 
of science. This position was taken by evangeli- 
cal scholarship a half century ago with regard to 
Strauss's plausible construction of the phenomena 
of the Gospels, and eventually the correctness of 
the Christian presumption was abundantly proved, 
and Strauss's treatment of the facts shown to be 
unscientific. Biblical science can fairly ask for a 
similar suspension of judgment respecting rational- 

15 



226 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

istic treatment of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
It does not think that its methods can be more 
fairly distrusted because some have used them im- 
perfectly (as it hopes to show) than those of phys- 
ical science can be impugned because some great 
biologists have believed that they could establish 
materialism by scientific treatment of vital facts. 
The attitude taken towards Old Testament stud- 
ies in some quarters is but a denial of the claims 
of historical science. Those who adhere to and 
preach this intellectual Sadduceeism in doing so 
are fighting against Christianity, which in all its 
appeal to the human mind justifies man's confi- 
dence in his own faculties. They might easily 
have learned from the experience of the church 
that attempts to make man believe science an im- 
possibility must inevitably result in discrediting any 
system or faith in whose behalf they are made. 

We must not assume that the prejudice felt by 
many towards the scientific study of the Old Testa- 
ment is due entirely to the distinctive positions of 
rationalistic scholars. It must be owned that the 
leading evangelical students of the Old Testament 
who belong to the progressive school suggest 
changes in the ordinary conception of Hebrew hisr 
tory, which, in the judgment of some, Christian 
faith cannot consent to make. But until it has 
been clearly shown that Christian faith is irrevo- 
cably committed to the entire correctness of the 
traditional view of the development of the Hebrew 
life, the prejudice has no sound foimdation. The 



THE SCRIPTURES. 227 

revision of the ancient interpretation of such pas- 
sages of the Old Testament as lie next the domain 
of physical science should make us very slow to be- 
lieve that advancing historical inquiry may not re- 
quire a similar modification of our view of Old 
Testament history. " But our implicit acceptance 
of Christ's teachings is an essential part of Chris- 
tian faith." Yes, and has evangelical Biblical 
science come into antagonism with any teaching 
of Christ in its assertions about the composition 
or structure of the Old Testament ? " He has as- 
cribed the Pentateuch to Moses, and the later 
chapters of Isaiah to the prophet called by that 
name." No, He has made no such ascription. * 
He has in quotation followed the Jewish habit of 
naming the book from its reputed author. It is a 
fair question as to whether, in the act of speaking, 
the person of the author was before his mind. 
Certainly He had no thought of making the fact of 
authorship a part of his teaching. One might as 
well claim that a minister commits himself to the 
view that all the book ascribed to Isaiah was writ- 
ten by that prophet, in saying to a congregation 
that he will read a chapter from the book of Isaiah. 
And even if one is convinced that our Lord ac- 
cepted the traditional view of the authorship of 
the books in question, he cannot hold that His 
authority is committed to that view until he has 
satisfied himself that Christ claimed to be omni- 
scient during the days of his humiliation, — a be- 
lief irreconcilable with his own declaration that He 



228 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

knew neither the day nor the hour of his second 
coming. 

" But has not Christ wrought into his teaching 
the great facts of Hebrew history, and thereby 
committed Christianity to a certain construction of 
that history ? " To the great constructive principles 
of Hebrew history as given in the Old Testament, 
and to certain large facts in which those principles 
are embodied, he has certainly committed it. In- 
deed, his personality implies, as its antecedent on 
the human side, such a national life and religious 
faith as we find depicted in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
But it has not been shown, we believe that it cannot 
be shown, that the traditional conception of Hebrew 
history in its details finds a sanction in the teachings 
of Christ. Who can maintain that He directly or 
indirectly taught that all the Pentateuchal legisla- 
tion was given in Moses's time ? Who can find in 
his words light as to the real nature of the change 
in the national life which caused the establishment 
of the monarchy? Clearly, Christian faith must 
leave the settlement of such questions to historical 
scholarship. It has no reason to fear any conclu- 
sions to which science may come respecting those 
sacred facts, for it knows its own life to be some- 
thing which human opinions did not create, and 
which, therefore, no change of human thinking can 
destroy. Any conceptions of history which are es- 
sential to its life it knows must be true, since God 
who has revealed himself to it through the medium 
of these conceptions cannot lie. Therefore it should 



THE SCRIPTURES. 229 

cordially welcome all the endeavors of science to 
make a clearer and more complete representation 
of its oldest historical sources, believing that so its 
connection with them will be made more apparent. 
This is the attitude which, as we have already in- 
timated, the enlightened part of the church has 
taken towards critical inquiry into the sources of 
our knowledge concerning the events of the life of 
Christ and those of his apostles. The central 
pillar of its confidence that the apostolic picture of 
our Lord was a true representation, was the as- 
surance that God who had presented Christ to its 
heart as it gazed on the portrait, and had so be- 
gotten it into new life, would not have deceived it 
in giving the assurance that this and no other was 
its Lord. Supported by this conviction, it wel- 
comed the most searching scrutiny into the his- 
torical sources of its faith. The examination was 
thorough and unsparing, and as its result the church 
has gained such respect from the best human think- 
ing, and such mastery of the precious facts which 
belong most intimately to its life, as make it feel 
itself indebted to historical science, under God, for 
some of its noblest possessions. It will gain like 
benefit from the present study of the sources of 
Hebrew history, if only it would maintain the same 
fearless attitude. 

We can, then, without hesitation commit our- 
selves to the study of the Old Testament writings 
for our knowledge of their authorship, of their pe- 
culiarities as literature, and the relation they re- 



230 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

spectively bear to the religious life of the Hebrew 
people, and to the divine revelation which that life 
contains. This inquiry involves, of course, the 
study of the historic revelation which lies back of 
these Scriptures, and of which they are products, 
just as the study of the New Testament Scrip- 
tures involves the study of the revelation borne by 
their respective authors and expressing itself in 
them. This assumption of spiritual principles run- 
ning through the events of Hebrew history and 
joining them into one teaching implies that concep- 
tion of human history, as shaped by God to ends of 
revelation and redemption, which the human mind 
has received from Christianity. Here, as through- 
out our discussion, we assume the truth of the 
Christian view of God in his relations to man. 
The Christian belief that Christ is the culmination 
of God's historic revelation implies such a con- 
ception of Hebrew history as our Lord himself had. 
This must underlie Christian study of the Old 
Covenant Scriptures. To know the ancient dispen- 
sation as the Old Covenant is to know it as both 
preparatory of and explained by the New. To study 
its Scriptures in their larger relation to its life is 
to study them in their relation to the purpose which 
shaped that life. 

To try to know the Old Covenant revelation 
without seeking its completion in Christ is like ex- 
amining a tree in midwinter. The various parts 
of the organism cannot be understood until that 
appears for which the organism exists. And the 



THE SCRIPTURES. 231 

dignity of each element of this revelation can be 
rightly estimated from the Christian point of view 
alone. If Christ is the supreme and final revela- 
tion He is the test of all preceding revelation. If 
we accept Him as God's supreme and final revela- 
tion, we must bring preceding revelation to this 
test. We cannot escape the process of comparison 
if we would. He brings us his own conception of 
God, of life, of duty. It claims to cover the whole 
horizon of truth, and demands possession of every 
spiritual and rational faculty. If we will have it 
as ours we must hold it separate from and above 
every other. Whatever else comes to us as from 
God must present its credentials to Christ's truth 
in our mind and hearts. This is not only the teach- 
ing of Christian faith ; it is the teaching of Christ. 
When He told us that certain precepts of the law 
were to be replaced by spiritual maxims more in 
harmony with the nature of God, He taught us to 
apply Christian principles to all the law and proph- 
ets, and to regard all in them which is not con- 
sistent with those principles as superseded by the 
new revelation. For no one thinks, surely, that 
when He made exceptions to certain provisions of 
the Mosaic code, He merely amended a law which 
whenever not amended holds good. Such an in- 
terpretation would commit his authority to the 
eternal validity of the sacrificial system. No ; we 
must with our Lord recognize a progress in revela- 
tion, and not attempt to find in Old Testament 
saints, even the loftiest spirits of them all, those 



232 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

fuller and purer conceptions of God and his ways 
which were brought into the world by the Incar- 
nation. And if we do not expect to find them in 
the men, we shall not feel ourselves compelled to 
distort facts in the endeavor to find them in the 
books which the men wrote. 

Such use as we have been able to make of what 
we contend to be the one method of finding out 
what the Bible is will have disappointed some of 
our readers by not including a precise definition of 
inspiration, or the activity of God upon the mind 
communicating Christian truth or fact. But such 
a definition is not needed to explain sacred Scrip- 
ture, and indeed cannot be adequate to the facts, 
both because the activity in question is not sep- 
arable as to kind from God's supernatural action 
in creating and sustaining a regenerate life, and as 
a vital fact partakes of the mystery which belongs 
to that life ; and because it is not, in point of de- 
gree, a constant quality, but varies with the indi- 
vidual through whom truth is communicated, and 
the changing conditions of his life and work. We 
have never seen a definition of inspiration which 
was rooted in the realities of sacred history, not 
one which did not seem to us an attempt to infer 
a cause for the Bible from such a product as the 
inventor desired to see in sacred Scripture. While 
we no more venture to try to make one than to de- 
fine the relation of God's activity to the inspired 
words of Christ, and do not think that the Bible, 
as a most complex and varied series of facts, can 



THE SCRIPTURES. 233 

be compassed in a definition, we do not hesitate to 
try to put as much of our conception of it as we 
can into a sentence. The Bible is the representa- 
tion in writing of God's historical revelation of 
himself to man, which has come immediately from 
that revelation as it passed through its successive 
stages. We see the revealing and redeeming pur- 
pose of God most strikingly manifested in the fact 
that the unique events in which He disclosed him- 
self have left as their products documents which 
bear their immediate impress. In the Scriptures 
themselves, regarded as sacred compositions, in 
their unparalleled moral and religious power and 
beauty, we recognize the outgoing of that inspired 
life which is the especial medium of his revelation. 
In the living unity into which their contents, so 
rich in variety, blend, we recognize the reflection 
of that redeeming purpose which underlies and 
shapes all the events of which they bear record. 
That the principle of that unity is Jesus Christ, 
that Scripture is felt to be a whole in that its teach- 
ings blend in showing Him in his historical rela- 
tions and spiritual function, we regard as the reflec- 
tion of God's purpose to make this theanthropic 
Person the centre of the divine revelation to man. 
That a multitude of providential and spiritual agen- 
cies, the period of whose operation extends through 
many centuries, should have united in the produc- 
tion of this unity, we regard as affording the most 
vivid illustration of the control of history by God 
for his redemptive purpose. 



*\ 



234 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

We do not deny that the immediate connection 
of sacred Scripture with the living facts of revela- 
tion has caused it to bear some of the imperfec- 
tions inherent in the nature of those facts so far 
as they belong to the life of man. This we see to 
be incident to the method of God's revelation, and 
the permanent fixing of that revelation in contem- 
poraneous Scripture. We can trust Him for the 
excellence of the method. Nay, we can gratefully 
recognize his adorable wisdom in selecting it; since 
the Bible, which brings the living reflection of his 
self-revealing acts, is, in its reality and freshness, 
far more effective in putting men into contact with 
those acts than a perfect description of them mi- 
raculously dictated could have been. We not only 
claim that this our conception of the Scriptures is 
lacking in no element of reverential regard for 
them, since it presents them in their immediate 
contact with the realities which most deeply stir 
the Christian heart, and as the only means by 
which those realities are known, but we further 
claim that it is the only Scriptural conception. 
One who insists that the church view of Scripture 
must be derived from a source outside Scriptural 
facts is in this very thing unscriptural, unless he; 
can produce some immediate declaration from the 
Bible as to its own nature, which declaration we 
affirm, as at the beginning, cannot be produced. 
We must, therefore, take the Biblical facts, to all 
Christians confessedly divine and revealing, as our 
guide in this matter, or be in spirit anti-Biblical. 



THE SCRIPTURES. 235 

For the fear that the aggressive power of Chris- 
tianity would be lessened by the general prevalence 
of this conception of Scripture, we confess our- 
selves to have little respect. Christianity can never 
lose headway by coming into truer conceptions of 
anything. God will not let it suffer from finding 
out what the Bible is, and telling men what it is. 
And its procedure in gaining men's hearts must 
be simply preaching Christ. If it be said that the 
preaching, in its full sense, implies satisfying the 
mind that He is indeed the Christ, we answer that 
men sadly hamper themselves in their endeavor to 
do this by undertaking to establish, as the neces- 
sary postulate of his divine nature and mission, the 
perfection of a book whose chief ground to con- 
fidence is its connection with Him and manifest 
possession of his truth. 

Christian Apologetics has enough work to do in 
proving Christ to reluctant minds, by moral and 
spiritual data, without entangling itself in such an 
absurd procedure as this. 

We might go further, and insist that the antag- 
onistic view of a perfect book, produced by an as- 
sumed series of miracles, superadded to the super- 
natural events in which God's historical revelation 
was made, a book to whose every statement the 
divine authority is committed, weakens Christian- 
ity by bringing it into collision with historical and 
physical science. But this argument we will not 
press. For the issue is to be decided, not by ex- 
hibiting consequences, but by weighing facts. 



IX. 



CONCLUSION. — CHRISTIANITY ABSOLUTE AND UNI- 
VERSAL. 

The preceding series of theological papers has 
been a discussion of the principal doctrines of the 
gospel, in order to recognize some of the lines 
along which advancing Christian thought has more 
recently been moving. We have considered the In- 
carnation, the Atonement, Eschatology, the Work 
of the Holy Spirit, the Christian, and the Bible, 
to discover in what respects clear and positive im- 
provement has been made on statements of be- 
lief which once had general currency. We have 
not pretended to create a theology, but only to 
modify or to enlarge established doctrines. When 
we have used the term New Theology it has been 
only as a convenient designation of a fresh move- 
ment in theological thought, only as the symbol 
of a quickening which we share in common with 
many others. In the exact use of terms there can, 
of course, at this late day, be no such thing as a 
new theology. We are not so silly as to suppose 
that modern religious thought is independent of an 
ancestry. Sturdy growth has old roots. The truth 
we study has engaged earnest thought throughout 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 237 

the Christian centuries. We have only attempted 
to show the directions in which generally accepted 
principles are pushing on to new and larger ap- 
plications, and to learn also, by means of applica- 
tions which can scarcely be ignored, the real signif- 
icance of those principles which are, and always 
have been, potential of such results. We agree 
with Dr. Martineau when he says : " I cannot rest 
contentedly on the past ; I cannot take a step to- 
wards the future without its support." Now that 
w r e can look back over the course which has been 
traveled, it is easier to perceive the kind and de- 
gree of progress achieved than when we were en- 
gaged on the separate topics. 

A single principle has for the most part guided 
the development of thought in the series, and this 
because it is the principle which is dominating 
more and more regally the intelligent Christian 
belief of our time; a principle which will no 
longer be confined within limits too narrow to con- 
tain it, nor tolerate the company of theories in- 
consistent with the truth it expresses. Readers 
cannot fail to have observed the emphasis we have 
laid on the universality of the gospel. We have 
assumed Christianity to be the final and supreme 
revelation of God to man, a revelation intended for 
the whole human race and destined to supersede 
all other religions ; and all the way along our in- 
quiry has been concerning the reality of this prin- 
ciple. What is involved in it ? How far does it 
carry us? What value and power reside in the 



N 



238 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

religious knowledge men gain apart from the gos- 
pel ? How is this universal gospel related to those 
large numbers of the human family who are en- 
tirely ignorant of it, and to the generations that 
have passed away without knowledge of it ? We 
have been very far from affirming that the univer- 
sality of the gospel has been only recently recog- 
nized, or that only the few accept it. On the con- 
trary, we have taken for granted that no one 
among so-called evangelical believers for an instant 
denies it. It is one of those postulates which can 
be assumed without debate in every discussion con- 
cerning the truths of the gospel. We have been 
asking ourselves, and have been asking our readers, 
not, Do you believe that Christianity is the su- 
preme and universal revelation of God to men ? 
but, How much do you mean by its universality 
and absolute supremacy, and can you believe as 
you do in this respect, and at the same time en- 
tertain certain opinions which seem to be excluded 
by the claims and the scope of Christianity ? To 
believe that besides the name of Jesus there is 
none other name given under heaven amongst men 
whereby there can be salvation, to believe that our 
Lord spoke truly when He said, "No man cometh 
to the Father but by me," is of necessity to have 
corresponding opinions concerning man's power to 
know God without Christ, and concerning God's 
purpose to give men that knowledge and motive in 
the absence of which they cannot be saved. It is 
this enlarging thought of the gospel in its univer- 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 289 

sality which is bringing embarrassment on the 
defenders of all theological systems which would 
confine the gospel within limited and arbitrary 
boundaries. It is this more generous recognition 
of the scope of the gospel which, while it inspires a 
larger hope for the unchristian nations, at the same 
time animates a great courage in proclaiming 
among them the religion of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. 

Let it not be forgotten, however, that only with 
a great price has this freedom been obtained. Not 
to mention earlier conflicts, we are scarcely yet out 
of the sound of warfare concerning the extent of 
the Atonement. It is not necessary to go out of 
the present century, nor indeed back of the older 
generation still represented among us, to find our- 
selves by the side of those who contended earnestly 
for a universal as against a limited atonement. 
The greatest service of the New England Theology 
was in gaining general assent to the universality of 
atonement. In the ethical field its service was less 
permanent, though at the time more highly ex- 
tolled. While it was, perhaps, enough to expect of 
one generation that it should restore to use an es- 
sential principle, yet it must be admitted that the 
New England Theology failed to apply consistently 
the truth it had rescued. To this generation the 
task remained of bringing other facts and opinions 
into harmony with the principle of universality. 
Our fathers were concerned to show that universal 
atonement does not of necessity procure universal 



240 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

salvation. The difference was marked between 
sufficiency and efficiency, between atonement and 
redemption. The great outside world of heathen- 
dom being impenetrable and practically unknown, 
the question had not become pressing, how an 
atonement could be universal while nine tenths of 
the human race, through many centuries, had been 
left in total ignorance concerning it. 

Yet, although this universal character of the 
gospel is now generally recognized, it may be 
claimed that at the present time conviction of it is 
deeper because its grounds are better understood. 
In the former time, besides the quotation of spe- 
cific texts, it was customary to argue universal 
atonement from the divinity of Christ. A divine 
Saviour must be a Saviour sufficient for the re- 
demption of all men. But we also find in the 
humanity of Christ, with equal reason, the univer- 
sality of the gospel. As shown in the article on In- 
carnation, the characteristic of his humanity is that 
He stands in universal relation to his brethren. 
He is the universal man, the head of humanity, the 
Son of man. Also, and this is perhaps the most 
considerable of recent enlargements in Christian 
thought, we are finding in the Scriptural teaching 
of judgment by Christ confirmation of his universal 
relation to men. We are learning that this means 
more than that the judgment is divine and there- 
fore cannot mistake, more than that it is sympa- 
thetic and therefore will not be severe. Since 
Christ is to judge the world, we know that the 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 241 

decisive fact for every man is his relation to Christ. 
In the supreme day the secrets of men are to be 
judged by Jesus Christ according to the gospel. 
Every man's judgment, his #cptW, is in relation to 
Him who has authority to execute judgment 6e- 
cause He is the Son of man. The Redeemer is 
the judge. Redemption and judgment are correl- 
ative. As redemption is the final and supreme 
revelation to man, no more sacrifice remaining, so 
the irreversible word of destiny is pronounced only 
in view of each individual's acceptance or rejection 
of Christ. Thus, on every side, as the gospel is 
better understood, fresh confirmation is found of 
its universality, and all theories of the condition, 
salvability, and destiny of men must be shaped in 
conformity with the unbounded power, claim, and 
promise of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We have, therefore, reaffirmed three important 
postulates of Christian thought and effort : uni- 
versal sinfulness, universal atonement, and the in- 
dispensableness of faith in Christ. 

By the first we mean that man's sinful state is 
such that he has no power of deliverance from it. 
This consideration is more important than a de- 
termination of the degree of his guilt. How guilty 
any man is can be known only to God. What 
judgment will be or should be passed on this or 
that individual our knowledge is not sufficient to 
show, although we, of course, believe that it will be 
a righteous and merciful judgment. The important 
fact is that all men are so under the control of 

16 



242 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

sinful propensity and sinful character that they 
have not in themselves the power of renewal. Al- 
though some are less guilty than others, although 
some will receive a more lenient judgment than 
others, the facts remain that all have sinned and 
come short of the glory of God, and that left to 
themselves there is no hope of salvation. 

The universality of atonement has been insisted 
on both in the treatment of that subject and in 
the discussion of other doctrines. 

The indispensableness of faith in Christ in order 
that sinful man may be restored to sonship with 
God has been repeatedly affirmed and continually 
assumed. 

We have accepted these postulates in their length 
and breadth. We have not reduced but rather 
have magnified their meaning. We are perfectly 
aware that a tremendous claim is thus made for 
Christianity, in respect both to the sufficiency of 
atonement and to the exclusion of any other way 
of salvation, but we believe the claim is explicitly 
supported by Scripture, and inseparable from any 
just thought of Christianity as a divine revelation. 

A natural inference from these premises is that 
every one will know God as He is revealed in the 
love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If Christ was 
given for the whole world, and if no one can be 
saved except by faith in Christ, we are almost 
driven to the conclusion that Christ will be made 
known to every individual of the human race in all 
the generations past, present, and future, and that 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 243 

everlasting destiny is determined for every person 
by his acceptance or rejection of Christ. This con- 
clusion we have therefore gladly and unhesitatingly 
adopted. We have not, however, expressed as pos- 
itive an opinion concerning the circumstances and 
seasons within which Christ will be revealed to 
those who do not know Him in the earthly life. 
But we frankly admit that it seems to us probable 
that those who in this life have no knowledge of 
Christ will not be denied that knowledge, with its 
corresponding opportunity, after death. Still, so 
much that is perplexing remains in respect to God's 
dealing with the nations of heathendom that we 
will not be so presumptuous as to press our opinion 
on any who are not ready to receive it, nor so vain 
as to suppose that we have found a complete solu- 
tion of one of the deepest mysteries of God's gov- 
ernment of the world. We are content to maintain 
these three postulates, and to let them establish 
such conclusions as appear most reasonable in the 
light of candid and reverent reflection. 

Sometimes acceptance of a truth becomes more 
confident when the alternatives to it are clearly 
recognized. If this or that alternative must be re- 
jected, the opinion which remains will have more 
probability. The alternative is to surrender one 
or more of the three postulates we have mentioned. 
It may be denied that man has in himself no power 
to escape from sin, or that atonement is universal, 
or that faith in Christ is indispensable to salvation. 

One alternative, then, is the theory that atone- 



/ 



244 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

ment was made only for the elect. God chose 
some from all eternity unto salvation. Then He 
sent his Son to redeem them, but not to redeem 
any others. Atonement was made for only part of 
the human family. It was sufficient for the pur- 
pose. So, besides the elect who have actually 
known Christ, there are elect infants and elect 
heathen who in some mysterious way are saved by 
means of the Atonement. This theory surrenders 
the second postulate. The Atonement is not uni- 
versal. It holds that sin is universal, and that 
faith in Christ is indispensable, but denies that the 

v Atonement is universal. It has the merit of con- 
sistency. There is no need to argue the question 
how Christ could have suffered for the whole world, 
while yet the vast majority of men die without 
knowledge of Christ, for it is not admitted that 
Christ did suffer for the whole world. But its con- 
sistency is bought at a terrible price. The con- 
ception of God is unscriptural, the doctrine of 
Christ is unchristian, and that sentiment or con- 
sciousness which is the product of the gospel is out- 
I raged. That alternative we have not even argued. 

• Such a gospel cannot be preached. Such a God 
cannot be loved. 

Another, and really the only other, alternative is 
the surrender of both the first and third postulates. 
By implication it is denied that faith in Christ is 
indispensable to salvation when it is argued that 
those who have not the gospel can be saved from 
their sins notwithstanding. If the light of reason 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 245 

and conscience is sufficient, then man can release 
himself from sin without the truth and love of 
Christ. This theory is argued at length in the 
chapter on Eschatology. It is enough now to em- 
phasize certain considerations which were urged 
before, but which seem to be overlooked in current 
discussions of the subject. 

If this theory means that man of himself can 
come to his normal state of holiness and likeness to 
God, we have replied that the evidence from facts 
is meagre and extremely uncertain, and that Scrip- 
ture repeatedly affirms the contrary. The instances 
of exceptional virtue usually cited are not suffi- 
ciently conclusive to warrant us in abandoning be- 
lief in the necessity of faith in Christ. We are not 
yet ready to admit that there is another name given 
under the Asiatic heaven whereby the Chinese can 
be saved, and another way open in Africa whereby 
a man can come to the Father. God may and does 
prepare conditions in the development of nations, 
and even of individuals, into which the truth of 
Christ can come and work with mighty power. 
The soil is made ready providentially, but the seed 
is always the word of the kingdom. The truth by 
which man is justified and sanctified is the truth as 
it is in Jesus, who is the wisdom of God and the 
power of God to every one that believeth. 

But were there not pious Jews before the time 
of Christ who were saved, and who at death entered 
immediately into blessedness ? Whatever may be- 
come of our theory, we can answer this question 



246 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

only in the affirmative. How, then, does it appear 
that knowledge of Christ is indispensable to sal- 
vation ? And if they were saved by living up to 
the light they had, why may not conscientious even 
if more ignorant heathen also be saved ? To these 
questions we must reply, as we replied before, that 
the knowledge of God granted to the Jews was dif- 
ferent in kind from the knowledge attainable by 
others, and that we therefore are not justified in 
arguing from the Jews to the Gentiles. The Jews 
occupied an exceptional position. They were the 
recipients of a special revelation from God. They 
were vouchsafed a knowledge of God along lines 
which led on to the complete revelation in Christ. 
They knew the righteousness and compassion of 
God. Above all, they had learned that God seeks 
man in pity and forgiveness for his redemption. 
With Abraham in some dim but real vision they 
saw the day of Christ. This would prove that it 
is not indispensable to salvation that one should 
know Christ in the actual circumstances of his 
earthly work. But there was a real foreshadowing 
of Christ such as was not opened to the Gentile na- 
tions. That revelation, even now, is found to have 
been so intimately related to the complete revela- 
tion in Christ that we bind up the record of it with 
the gospel to make our Bible in its indissoluble or- 
ganic unity. It may also be repeated that the be- 
lief has always been cherished that devout Jews 
were brought after death to their full salvation 
through the knowledge of Christ. But the Jews 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 247 

present no real exception to our principle, for sal- 
vation was made known to them through the aton- 
ing and redeeming love of God, and Judaism is 
inseparable from Christianity. But when we are 
asked to go farther, to argue from the Jews to the 
heathen, from the Psalms to the Vedas, from the 
Prophets to the books of Confucius, to believe that 
the light of reason and conscience without any rev- 
elation whatever differs not in kind but in degree 
only from Christianity, we confess ourselves unable 
to follow. When, in order to save the postulate of 
faith in Christ (for there evidently is no other rea- 
son, since observed facts would never suggest it), 
when it is soberly argued that the comparatively 
good heathen are saved by their faith in Christ, 
although they never heard of Him, that Christ is 
essentially known when He is not known at all, we 
really must be excused from making so fanciful 
discriminations. It is intelligible that those who 
do not know Christ during the earthly life will be 
lost, for want of that knowledge ; although we can- 
not bring ourselves so to believe. It is intelligible 
that those who do not know Christ during the 
earthly life may yet live so righteously that they 
will have a place in the kingdom of the redeemed 
at last ; although such persons are confessedly sel- 
dom found, and when they are supposed to be 
found it is believed that they ultimately know God 
in Christ, and thus only are redeemed from their 
sin. It is intelligible, and we think probable, that 
those who do not know Christ during the earthly 



248 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

life will know Him in the life beyond. The ex- 
tension of time seems necessary to the absolute and 
universal religion. But it is in our opinion neither 
intelligible nor probable that men are saved by a 
Christ of whom they know nothing whatever. This 
theory we can best characterize still as salvation by 
magic. We have pondered it well, and think it 
leaves Paul's question still unanswered : " How 
shall they believe in Him of whom they have not 
heard? " We are slow to conclude that men are 
saved from their sins and restored to sonship with 
God without knowing Christ and believing in Him. 
We are not convinced that character becomes fixed 
in righteousness and likeness to God apart from 
the gospel. Some conscientiousness there may be, 
some moral amendment, some conformity to the 
light given. In such cases men are not hopelessly 
condemned, for they are capable of salvation. But 
are they redeemed from sin ? Are they walking in 
newness of life ? Have they the purity and liberty 
of the children of God ? Would there not be rad- 
ical changes if Christ were known and received ? 
Let us remember that the question is not concern- 
ing the blameworthiness of those who have been 
obedient to the light they have. The question is 
whether any besides those who receive Christ have 
power to become the sons of God, whether they 
can be saved in any sufficient meaning of salvation 
unless either before death, or at death, or after 
death, the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God shines upon them in the face of Jesus Christ. 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 249 

Not only do we believe that character does not 
become permanently crystallized into holiness by 
the aid of reason and conscience alone, even if such 
light (in some sense unintelligible to us) is equiv- 
alent to Christianity, but we also believe that, in 
the vast majority of cases, character does not be- 
come permanently crystallized into wickedness, so 
that salvation through Christ becomes impossible. 
If the heathen are still capable of salvation through 
Christ, can we believe that because an inert church 
fails to preach Christ to them during their earthly 
life they will therefore never have the opportunity 
of knowing Him ? It is sometimes said that if Soc- 
rates had known of Christ he would have believed 
in Him, and it is therefore supposed that after 
death he did know Christ. That is, Socrates at 
death was still capable of salvation through Christ. 
Neither more nor less than this is meant. But who 
shall draw the line between those heathen who are 
and those who are not capable of salvation ? Can 
one walk up and down in heathendom, and, as he 
proceeds, point to this one, and that one, and 
another, who have become incapable of repentance 
and renewal ? Will one stand on the threshold of 
his little church and turn away certain persons be- 
cause he clearly perceives that even the gospel of 
Jesus Christ is powerless to save them ? Certainly 
an African, a Japanese, an Australasian, sinks into 
deep debasement. The corruption seems incurable. 
But would any missionary board send out a preacher 
who intends to labor only for those who show some 



250 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

remaining signs of moral health ? Whatever may 
be the fact, we certainly have not a knowledge of 
men sufficient to warrant us in affirming that any 
one to whom Christ has not been made known is 
already incapable of salvation. We do not dare 
to affirm as much of any individual who has ap- 
parently become fixed in wickedness and unbelief 
under the full blaze of the light of the gospel. 
The mighty working of the Holy Spirit in corrupt 
hearts has so often reversed our judgment that we 
have learned to despair of none. Much less, then, 
is it permissible to conclude that any heathen, 
however wicked he may be, but who has not heard 
of Christ, is hopelessly lost. And if such a one 
goes out of the world, as millions do, without knowl- 
edge of Christ, who shall dare to say, in the ab- 
sence of any word of Scripture to that effect, that 
the clear light and the mighty motive of the gospel 
will be withheld forever ? 

It seems to be thought by some that our prin- 
cipal contention has been to show that no one can 
be saved without knowledge of Christ, and that if 
a few exceptions could be discovered our principle 
would be overthrown. But we have been endeavor- 
ing to show that no one can be lost without having 
had knowledge of Christ. The Jews and the pious 
heathen have been cited to prove that salvation is 
possible without knowledge of the historic Christ, 
and consequently it has been concluded that our 
principle breaks down. But even if we should have 
to admit that some abatement must be made from 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 251 

a strict interpretation of our principle so as to make 
room for these exceptions, we should still press the 
main question. The real difficulty is that millions 
of men die, not only without knowledge of the gos- 
pel, but also without showing signs of moral re- 
newal, and we ask, Are all these multitudes, through 
so many generations, hopelessly lost ? Opinions 
may differ about the salvation of the few exception- 
ally virtuous heathen. But opinions cannot differ 
about the masses of heathendom who die in their 
sins. Must we, can we, believe that they are eter- 
nally damned ? Is it possible that God will never 
bring to them the light and motive of the gospel of 
Jesus Christ? We think, indeed, as we have re- 
peatedly argued, that salvation in any proper sense 
of the term is realized only by faith in Christ, that 
conscientious heathen have only a capacity more or 
less for redemption. Neither have we at any point 
so narrowly interpreted Christianity as to limit 
knowledge of Christ to acquaintance with the facts 
of the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth. We have 
meant knowledge of God's atoning and redeeming 
love, which the Jews received dimly without know- 
ing the historic Christ ; which, we believe, is given 
after death to those who, seeing Him for the first 
time, see Him as He is, perhaps without the inter- 
vention of biography and history, but which, we 
think, is not in any intelligible sense given to the 
heathen nations before death. Therefore, when it 
is asked, Are not some persons saved without knowl- 
edge of Christ ? we answer, Possibly ; although, ex- 



252 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

cept the Jews, to whom a revelation was made, re- 
deemed persons outside Christendom are admitted 
to be exceedingly few. But when all has been con- 
ceded on that side that can possibly be claimed, the 
real difficulty remains as grave and persistent as 
before. Are multitudes of men lost without knowl- 
edge of God's atoning and redeeming love in Jesus 
Christ ? Can they be finally and absolutely con- 
demned if they have known nothing of God's final 
and absolute revelation of himself to mankind? 
Can any one be hopelessly lost who has not so 
much as heard of Him who tasted death for every 
man ? We, therefore, contend that universal judg- 
ment by Christ means that every man is to be 
judged by his relation to Christ ; that no one will 
be forever condemned unless he has rejected the sal- 
vation which is in Jesus Christ. 

It should, perhaps, be explicitly stated, in order 
to prevent misapprehension, that our opinion that 
the heathen after death will obtain knowledge of 
Christ does not mean that their probation con- 
tinues on and on till the day of judgment, while 
the probation of others is limited to this life. That 
knowledge of Christ which is decisive may come 
immediately after death, so that probation speedily 
comes to an end. Our contention is that destiny 
is determined by one's relation to Christ, and that 
therefore to every one Christ, sooner or later, will 
be made known. The judgment day is the end of 
probation for the race as a whole. Then every 
land, every nation, every generation, will have 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 253 

known Christ as Redeemer. But the limit of pro- 
bation for countless individuals will long since have 
been passed, for many who did not have the gospel 
in the earthly life, as well as for the many who did 
have it in the earthly life. The revelation given 
in the disembodied state may be so luminous that 
the actual time will scarcely be appreciable be- 
tween the moment of death and the moment when 
Christ is decisively accepted or rejected. And yet, 
with some, we can easily imagine that protracted 
processes of education and discipline may be nec- 
essary to make them ripe for decision. We do 
not argue, then, for a second probation, nor for a 
probation indefinitely prolonged, but for a Chris- 
tian probation, sometime and somewhere, and for a 
Christian judgment under which all the individuals 
of all the nations, and all the generations, will re- 
ceive the allotments of eternal destiny. 

It is instructive to observe that nearly all who 
for various reasons cannot believe that the heathen 
may have knowledge of Christ after death are con- 
fessing their inability to reach any definite con- 
clusion whatever. A common answer to questions 
concerning the destiny of the heathen is, We do 
not know. This view is sometimes called Christian 
agnosticism. Besides our own, we believe this to 
be the only tenable position. The manifest incon- 
sistency of the theories we have criticised is driving 
them from the field. Christians are at least becom- 
ing certain that there are some opinions they can- 
not hold. One candid editor says that no Scrip- 



254 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

ture denounces endless woe on heathen who have 
never heard of Christ, and that, therefore, we can- 
not be required to believe that their doom is hope- 
less ; that when the few sporadic instances of " pious 
heathen " are pointed to for relief they are found 
to be inadequate to solve the tremendous problem. 
He therefore relegates the whole matter to infinite 
wisdom and justice and love. He does not believe 
that the heathen are lost, nor that the few moral, 
even if essentially Christian, heathen relieve the 
immense difficulty, and therefore he is a Christian 
agnostic, committing the world in triumphant 
faith and hope to the Infinite Father. He ex- 
plicitly declares that we can neither see nor affirm 
what becomes of the heathen hereafter. To this 
conclusion a majority of Christians have probably 
come. It certainly shows great progress that this 
position is quite generally held. Much is gained 
when untenable theories are intelligently aban- 
doned. It is an important discovery as well as 
admission that the Bible nowhere teaches that 
heathen who have never heard the gospel are hope- 
lessly lost. Therefore, when it is said that the 
Scripture does not teach that the heathen have op- 
portunity of salvation after death, we can at least 
reply that it does not preclude that hope, for it 
nowhere teaches that the heathen are lost, and that 
their opportunity is limited to this life. But we 
have no contention with the agnostic, and we think 
he has no reason to have contention with us. We 
are agreed in rejecting certain outworn and un- 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 255 

christian theories. He does not deny that God's 
way may be to give knowledge of Christ after 
death, only he is not at present convinced. He 
will admit that such a method is not unworthy of 
God nor unreasonable in itself. When ignorance 
is confessed under the saying that God will do 
what is right, we, of course, agree. No one be- 
lieves that God will do what is wrong. Our con- 
viction, however, is that the revelation of God in 
Christ enables us to understand in certain respects 
what is right for God to do or not to do. We be- 
lieve it is right for God to judge the world by 
Jesus Christ, for we therefore believe that the 
judgment of men is determined by their relation 
to Him who has already been made known to them 
as Saviour. Agnosticism on this subject is likely 
to be temporary. It is a resting-place where one 
stands who has cut loose from unchristian theories. 
Search of the Scriptures and profounder study of 
Christianity will be likely to carry him on to the 
principle we have so often enunciated and empha- 
sized. We think agnosticism can properly remain 
only concerning the mode in which that principle 
will be applied to men in the great variety of their 
moral conditions. 

We have dwelt on the relation of the heathen 
world to the gospel longer than might seem nec- 
essary. The reason is that the gravest objection 
to the universality and absoluteness of Christianity 
is at this very point. The Scriptural representa- 
tions of the gospel, and its intrinsic character, 



256 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

show it to be universal; yet, as matter of fact, 
only a small fraction of the human race in the long 
succession of the ages has even heard of Jesus 
Christ. How, then, it may fairly be asked, can it 
be considered the universal religion? The acute 
Strauss urges the force of this objection. He de- 
clares that, since so large a portion of mankind 
know nothing of Christianity, it cannot be neces- 
sary to salvation, because not the universal re- 
ligion ; and that, if certain virtuous heathen are 
saved, then the gospel is proved not to be the uni- 
versal religion, because not necessary to salvation. 1 
The only reply is that until the gospel does fill the 
whole earth knowledge of it must be given after 
death to those who are deprived of its blessings be- 
fore death. 

We need not linger to review the several articles 
of our series in the light of the absoluteness of 
Christianity. The Incarnation shows Christ the 
universal man vitally related to the whole human 
race. The Atonement shows Christ suffering with 
the race and for the race, and thereby giving man- 
kind a power it could not otherwise have. The 
Holy Spirit uses as highest and final motive for 
every man the truth as it is in Jesus. Man can be 
brought to God only through Christ the Saviour of 
the world. The Bible is the supreme authority for 
man, because it embodies the gospel of the only be-, 
gotten Son of God. 

We have also endeavored to show that there can 

1 Christliche Glaubenslehre, i. pp. 268-274. 



CHRISTIANITY UNIVERSAL. 257 

be no stronger motive to missions than a clear rec- 
ognition that the gospel is absolute and universal. 
If one believes that the heathen are doomed, and 
that all of them who die without hearing of Christ 
are forever lost, he has, indeed, an urgent motive 
to send or carry the gospel to them. But a more 
inspiring motive is found in loyalty to Christ, in 
obedience to his last command, in laboring with 
Him for the extension of his kingdom, in gaining 
for Him those who are his own and for whom He 
died. At the recent great missionary meeting in 
Boston it was noticeable that the motive urged was 
the universality of Christianity, the relation of 
Christ to the race ; and that scarcely a word was 
uttered concerning the doom of the heathen. What- 
ever may have been believed by the majority of 
the assembly as to the fate of the heathen, it was 
evidently felt that the influential motive is the uni- 
versality of Christ's redemption and kingdom, and 
the need all men have of entering into that king- 
dom. But we may not make inquisition into mo- 
tives, nor insist that others shall be impelled by 
the identical motive which urges us on. Neither 
of these great motives is a selfish motive. Love 
for men is in them both. Paul was not half as 
careful as those would be now who can discover 
but one motive for preaching the gospel. He knew 
that some preached from very low motives, but he 
would not hinder them. " Some indeed preach 
Christ even of envy and strife ; and some also of 
good will. . . . What then? only that in every 

17 



258 PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY. 

way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is pro- 
claimed; and therein I rejoice, yea, and will re- 
joice." We may not discourage those who preach 
Christ because they believe that the heathen not 
having the gospel in this life are hopelessly lost. 
Neither may they discourage those who go forth 
with enthusiasm to proclaim Christ who is the only 
Redeemer and rightful King of men, and whose 
kingdom is a universal and an everlasting king- 
dom. 

Both in respect to our thinking and our toil we 
may share the expectation of the great apostle who 
was both theologian and missionary, when he said, 
" Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and 
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full- 
grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fulness of Christ." 



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A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF RELIGION, THEOLOGY, 
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life, the title of these essays is admirably chosen. It must arrest at- 
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to the domain of darkness, dreams, disease, myths, and other uncer- 
tainties, — A dv ertiser (Boston). 



Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 3 

Joseph Cook, 

Biology. With Preludes on Current Events. Eighteenth 

Edition. 3 colored illustrations. 
Transcendentalism. With Preludes on Current Events. 
Orthodoxy. With Preludes on Current Events. 
Conscience. With Preludes on Current Events. 
Heredity. With Preludes on Current Events. 
Marriage. With Preludes on Current Events. 
Labor. With Preludes on Current Events. 
Socialism. With Preludes on Current Events. 

Occident. With Preludes on Current Events. (A new 

volume.) 
Orient. With Preludes on Current Events. (A new 

volume.) (In Press.) 

Each volume, 12mo, $1.50. 

Mr. Cook did not take up the work he has accomplished as a trade, 
or by accident, or from impulse ; but for years he had been preparing 
for it, and prepared for it by an overruling guidance. . . . He light- 
ens and thunders, throwing a vivid light on a topic by an expression 
or comparison, or striking a presumptuous error as by a bolt from 
heaven. — James McCosh, D. D. 

Rev. M. Creighton. 

History of the Papacy during the Period of the 
Reformation. Vol. L The Great Schism — The Council of 
Constance, 1378-1418. Vol. II. The Council of Basel — The 
Papal Restoration, 1418-1464. 2 vols. 8vo, $10.00. 

Thomas De Quincey. 
Essays on Christianity, Paganism, and Superstition. 

12mo, $1.50. 

The Dhammapada. 

Texts from the Buddhist Canon, commonly known as 
Dhammapada, with accompanying Narratives. Translated from 
the Chinese by Samuel Beal, Professor of Chinese, University 
College, London. 8vo, gilt top, $2.50. 

Professor J. L. Diman. 

The Theistic Argument as Affected by Recent 
Theories. Edited by Professor George P. Fisher. Crown 

8vo, $2.00. 

The author has succeeded in making it clear that recent science 
impels us to a point where the necessity of admitting the existence of 
God is irresistible ; that its most elevated conceptions and widest 



4 Religious Publications of 

generalizations render it necessary to accept the presence ana con- 
stant efficient energy of God as realities; and that the modes of oper- 
ation which science discloses are in harmony with the fundamental 
principles and postulates of Christianity. — British Quarterly Review. 
Dr. Diman concedes to his opponents every advantage of debate, 
adopts their phraseology, follows their methods of reasoning, grants 
to them every principle that they have established wholly or approxi- 
mately, and, indeed, a great deal that is scarcely more than conjec- 
ture ; and yet he is able to present a defense of theistic doctrine that 
will seem most admirable and most consolatory to its adherents and 
most embarrassing to some of its enemies. He has conducted the 
whole discussion with rare ability, and has furnished sound reasoning 
at every successive step. — Times (New York). 

Orations and Essays, with Selected Parish Sermons. 

A Memorial Volume, with a portrait. 8vo, gilt top, $2.50. 

This volume contains, in addition to other papers, the following 
Sermons : The Son of Man ; Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life ; Christ, the Bread of Life ; Christ in the Power of His Resur- 
rection ; The Holy Spirit, the Guide to Truth ; The Baptism of the 
Holy Ghost ; The Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of Nature ; 
and a Review entitled Religion in America, 1776-1876. 

Joseph Edkins, D. D. 

Chinese Buddhism. A volume of Sketches, Historical, 

Descriptive, and Critical. 8vo, gilt top, $4.50. 

Eight Studies of the Lord's Day. 

12mo, $1.50. 

A thoughtful examination of the Scriptural and historical grounds 
for the observance of Sunday. 

Hugh Davey Evans, LL. D. 
A Treatise on the Christian Doctrine of Marriage. 

With a Biographical Sketch of the Author, and an Appendix con- 
taining Bishop Andre wes' "Discourse against Second Marriage," 
etc. !2mo, $1.50. 

Luclwig Feuerbach. 

The Essence of Christianity. Translated from the 
Second German Edition by Marian Evans (George Eliot). 8vo, 
gilt top, $3.00. 

John Fiske. 

The Destiny of Man, viewed in the Light of his 

Origin. 16mo, $1.00. 
The Unseen World, and other Essays. 12rno, $*2.00. 

The Idea of God as affected by Modern Knowl- 
edge. A Sequel to u The Destiny of Man." 16mo. $1.00. 



Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 5 

Washington Gladden. 

The Lord's Prayer. Seven Essays on the Meaning and 
Spirit of this universal Prayer. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00. 

George Zabriskie Gray. 
The Crusade of the Children in the XHIth Century. 

12mo, $1.50. 
Husband and Wife ; or, The Theory of Marriage and its 
Consequences. With an Introduction by the Rt. Rev. F. D. Hun- 
tington, D. D. 16mo, $1.00. 

R. P. Hallowell. 
The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts. 16mo, $1.25. 
A history of the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts. 

George Herbert and Henry Vaughan. 

The Poetical Works of George Herbert. With a 
Memoir and Portrait of the Author, and Notes by Rev. Robert 
Aris Willmott. Also, the Sacred Poems and Private Ejacula- 
tions of Henry Vaughan, with a Memoir by Rev. F. Lyte. 
Crown 8vo, gilt top, $1.75 ; half calf, $3.50. 

Favorite Poems from the Works of George Her- 
bert. Together with Poems by Collins, Dryden, Marvell, 
and Herrick. Illustrated. In " Modern Classics," No. 25. 32mo, 
orange edges, 75 cents. 

Rev. S. E. Herrick. 
Some Heretics of Yesterday. Crown 8vo, $1.50. 

Contents : Tauler and the Mystics ; Wicklif ; John Hus ; Savon- 
arola ; Latimer ; Cranmer ; Melancthon ; Knox ; Calvin ; Coligny ; 
William Brewster ; John Wesley. 

Thomas Hughes. 
The Manliness of Christ. 16mo, $1.00; paper covers, 

25 cents. 

It is shown with great force that the " Life of Christ " was not only 
a manly life, but the manly life of all history. — Examiner and Chron- 
icle (New York). 

Hymns of the Ages. 

Hymns of the Ages. First, Second, and Third Series. 
Each in one volume, illustrated with steel vignette, 12mo, $1.50 
each ; half calf, $9.00 a set. 



6 Religious Publications of 

Henry James. 

The Secret of Swedenborg. Being an Elucidation of 
his Doctrine of the Divine Natural Humanity. 8vo, $2.50. 

We admire the metaphysical acuteness, the logical power, and the 
singular literary force of the book, which is also remarkable as car- 
rying into theological writing something besides the hard words of 
secular dispute, and as presenting to the world the great questions 
of theology in something beside a Sabbath-day dress. — Atlantic 
Monthly. 

Society the Redeemed Form of Man, and the Ear- 
nest of God's Omnipotence in Human Nature. Affirmed in 
Letters to a Friend. 8vo, $2.00. 

Samuel Johnson. 

Oriental Religions, and their Relation tc Univer- 
sal Religion. By Samuel Johnson. 

India. 8vo, 810 pages, $5.00 ; half calf, $8.00. 

Samuel Johnson's remarkable work is devoted wholly to the relig- 
ions and civilization of India, is the result of twenty years' study 
and reflection by one of the soundest scholars and most acute think- 
ers of New England, and must be treated with all respect, whether 
we consider its thoroughness, its logical reasoning, or the conclusion — 
unacceptable to the majority, no doubt — at which it arrives. — Re- 
pnblican (Springfield). 

China. 8vo, 1000 pages, $5.00 ; half calf, $8.00. 

Altogether the work of Mr. Johnson is an extraordinarily rich 
mine of reliable and far-reaching information on all literary subjects 
connected with China. . . . He decidedly impresses us as an author- 
ity on Chinese subjects. — E. J. Eitel, Ph. D., Editor of The China 
Review (Hong Kong). 

Persia. 8vo, 829 pages, $5.00 ; half calf, $8.00. 

Lectures, Essays, and Sermons. With a portrait, and 
Memoir by Rev. Samuel Longfellow. Crown 8vo, gilt top, 
$1.75. 

This volume contains, in addition to a Memoir of Mr. Johnson arid 
other articles, Sermons on the Law of the Blessed Life, Gain in Loss, 
The Search for God, Fate, Living by Eaith, The Duty of Delight, 
and Transcendentalism. 

Thomas Starr King. 

Christianity and Humanity. Sermons. Edited, with 
a Memoir, by Edwin P. Whipple. Fine steel portrait. 16mo, 
$2.00. 



Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 7 

The Koran. 

Selections from the Koran. By Edward William 
Lane. Second Edition, revised and enlarged, with an Introduction 
by Stanley Lane Poole. 8vo, gilt top, $3.50. 
See Wherry (Rev. E. M.). 

Alvan Lamson, D. D. 

The Church of the First Three Centuries ; or, No- 
tices of the Lives and Opinions of the Early Fathers, with special 
reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity ; illustrating its late origin 
and gradual formation. Revised and enlarged edition. 8vo, $2.50. 

Lucy Larcom. 

Breathings of the Better Life. " Little Classic " 

style. 18mo, $1.25; half calf, $3.00. 

A book of choice selections from the best religious writers of all 
times. 

Henry C. Lea. 
Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church. 

Second Edition, considerably enlarged. 8vo, $4.50. 

One of the most valuable works that America has produced. Since 
the great history of Dean Milman, I know no work in English which 
has thrown more light on the moral condition of the Middle Ages, 
and none which is more fitted to dispel the gross illusions concerning 
that period which Positive writers and writers of a certain ecclesiasti- 
cal school have conspired to sustain. — W. E. H. Lecky, in History 
of European Morals. 

Samuel Longfellow and Samuel Johnson. 

Hymns of the Spirit. 16mo, roan, $1.25. 
A collection of remarkable excellence. 

W. A. McVickar, D. D. 

Life of the Rev. John McVickar, S. T. D. With por- 
trait. Crown 8vo, $2.00. 

William Mountford. 

Euthanasy; or, Happy Talk towards the End of Life., 
New Edition, 12mo, gilt top, $2.00. 

Rev. T. Mozley. 

Reminiscences, chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford 

Movement. 2 vols. 16mo, $3.00 ; half calf, $6.00. 

Many before now — Oakley, Froude, Kennard, not to mention 
Newman himself — have contributed to the story of the Tractarian 



8 Religious Publications of 

Movement. None of these, not even the famous Apologia, will com- 
pare with the volumes now before us in respect to minute fullness, 
close personal observation, and characteristic touches. — Professor 
Pattison, in The Academy (London). 

Elisha Mulford, LL. D. 

The Republic of God. 8vo, $2.00. 

A book which will not be mastered by hasty reading, nor by a cool, 
scientific dissection. We do not remember" that this country has 
lately produced a speculative work of more originality and force. . . . 
The book is a noble one — broad-minded, deep, breathing forth an 
ever-present consciousness of things unseen. It is a mental and moral 
tonic which might do us all good. — The Critic (New York). 

No book on the statement of the great truths of Christianity, at 
once so fresh, so clear, so fundamental, and so fully grasping and 
solving the religious problems of our time, has yet been written by 
any American. — Advertiser (Boston). 

It is the most important contribution to theological literature thus 
far made by any American writer. — The Churchman (New York). 

Rev. T. T. Munger. 

The Freedom of Faith. Sermons. 16mo, $1.50. 

Contents : Prefatory Essay : The New Theology ; On Reception 
of New Truth; God our Shield; God our Reward; Love to the 
Christ as a Person; The Christ's Pity; The Christ as a Preacher ; 
Land-Tenure; Moral Environment; Immortality and Science; Im- 
mortality and Nature ; Immortality as Taught by the Christ ; The 
Christ's Treatment of Death; The Resurrection from the Dead; 
The Method of Penalty ; Judgment ; Life a Gain ; Things to be 
Awaited. 

On the Threshold. Familiar Lectures to young peo- 
ple on Purpose, Friends and Companions, Manners, Thrift, Self- 
Reliance, etc. 16mo, gilt top, $1.00. 

Lamps and Paths. Sermons for Children. 16mo, $1.00. 

J. A. W. Neander. 

General History of the Christian Religion and 
Church. Translated from the German by Rev. Joseph Torrey, 
Professor in the University of Vermont. With an Index volume. 
The set, with Index, 6 vols., $20.00. Index volume, separate, $3.00. 
"Neander's Church History" is one of the most profound, care- 
fully considered, deeply philosophized, candid, truly liberal, and in- 
dependent historical works that have ever been written. In all 
these respects it stands head and shoulders above almost any other 
church history in existence. — Professor Calvin E. Stowe, Andover, 
Mass. 



Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 9 

Illustrated New Testament. 

The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. With engravings on wood from designs of Fra 
Angelico, Pietro Perugino, Francesco Francia, Lorenzo di Credi, 
Fra Bartolommeo, Titian, Raphael, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Daniele di 
Volterra, and others. Royal 4to, full gilt, 540 pages, $10.00 ; full 
morocco, $20.00. 

Timothy Otis Paine, LL. D. 

Solomon's Temple and Capitol, Ark of the Flood and 
Tabernacle ; or, The Holy Houses of the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, 
Samaritan, Septuagint, Coptic, and Itala Scriptures, Josephus, 
Talmud, and Rabbis. With 42 full-page Plates and 120 Text- 
Cuts, from drawings by the author. In four parts, each $5.00. 
(Sold by subscription.) 

Blaise Pascal. 

Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules. Translated from 
the French by O. W. Wight, A. M., with Introductory Notices 
and Notes. 12mo, $2.25. 

Provincial Letters. A new Translation, with Histori- 
cal Introduction and Notes, by Rev. Thomas McCrie, preceded 
by a Life of Pascal, a Critical Essay, and a Biographical Notice. 
12mo, $2.25; the set, 2 vols, half calf, $8.00. 

Peep of Day Series. 

Peep of Day Series. Comprising " The Peep of Day," 
"Precept upon Precept," and "Line upon Line." 3 vols. 16mo, 
each 50 cents ; the set, $1.50. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
The Gates Ajar. 16mo, $1.50. 
Beyond the Gates. 16mo, $1.25. 

Prayers of the Ages. 

Prayers of the Ages. Compiled by Caroline S. 
Whitmarsh, one of the editors of " Hymns of the Ages/' 16mo, 
$1.50. 

Rev. James Reed. 

SWEDENBORG AND THE NEW CHURCH. 16mO, $1.25. 

Sampson Reed. 

Observations on the Growth of the Mind. New 
Edition. With Biographical Sketch of the Author by Rev. Jasies 
Reed, and a portrait. 16mo. SI. 00. 



io Religious Publications of 

E. ReusSo 

History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Tes- 
tament. By Eduard (Wilhelm Eugen) Reuss, Professor Ordi- 
narius in the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the Emperor 
William's University, Strassburg, Germany. Translated, with nu- 
merous Bibliographical Additions, by Edward L. Houghton, 
A. M. 2 vols. 8vo, $5.00. 

Edward Robinson, D. D., LL. D. 

Harmony of the Four Gospels, in Greek. According 
to the Text of Hahn. By Edward Robinson, D. D., LL. D., 

Professor of Biblical Literature in the Union Theological Seminary, 
New York. With Notes. New Edition. Revised by M. B. Rid- 
dle, Professor in the Hartford Theological Seminary. 8vo, $2.00. 

Harmony of the Four Gospels, in English, according 
to the Common Version. With Notes. New Edition. 12mo, 75 
cents. 

Biblical Researches in Palestine. 3 vols. 8vo, with 

maps, $10.00. Price of the maps alone, $1.00. 

Dean Stanley said of these volumes : " They are amongst the very 
few books of modern literature of which I can truly say that I have 
read every word. I have read them under circumstances which riv- 
eted my attention upon them : while riding on the back of a camel ; 
while traveling on horseback through the hills of Palestine; under 
the shadow of my tent, when I came in weary from the day's journey. 
These were the scenes in which I first became acquainted with the 
work of Dr. Robinson. But to that work I have felt that I and all 
students of Biblical literature owe a debt that can never be effaced." 

Physical Geography of the Holy Land. A Supple- 
ment to " Biblical Researches in Palestine/' 8vo, $3.50. 
A. capital summary of our present knowledge. — London Athenceum. 

Hebrew and English Lexicon op the Old Testament, 
including the Biblical Chaldee. Erom the Latin of William Ge- 
senius, by Edward Robinson. New Edition. 8vo, half russia, 
$6.00. 

English-Hebrew Lexicon: Being a complete Verbal 
Index to Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon as translated by Robinson. 
By Joseph Lewis Potter, A. M. 8vo, $2.00. 

A Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testa- 
ment. New Edition, revised and in great part rewritten. 8vo, 
$4.00. 

Professor Josiah Royce. 
Religious Aspect of Philosophy. 12mo, $2.00. 

Rev. Thomas Scott. 
The Bible, with Explanatory Notes, Practical 



Houghto7i y Mifflin & Co. 1 1 

Observations, and Copious Marginal References. By 
Rev. Thomas Scott. 6 vols, royal 8vo, sheep, $15.00. 
I believe it exhibits more of the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures 
than any other work of the kind extant. — Rev. Andrew Fuller. 

J. C. Shairp. 
Culture and Religion in some of their Relations. 

16mo, gilt top, $1.25. 

A. P. Sinnett. 

Esoteric Buddhism. With an Introduction prepared ex- 
pressly for the American Edition, by the author. 16mo, $1.25. 

William Smith. 

Dictionary of the Bible, comprising its Antiquities, 
Biography, Geography, and Natural History. By William 
Smith. Edited by Professor Horatio Balch Hackett and 
Ezra Abbot, LL. D. In four volumes, 8vo, 3667 pages, with 
596 illustrations. Cloth, beveled edges, strongly bound, $20.00 ; 
full sheep, $25.00; half morocco, $30.00; half calf, extra, $30.00; 
half russia, $35.00 ; full morocco, gilt, $40.00 ; tree calf, $45.00. 
There are several American editions of Smith's Dictionary of the 
Bible, but this edition comprises not only the contents of the original 
English edition, unabridged, but very considerable and important 
additions by the editors, Professors Hackett and Abbot, and twenty- 
six other eminent American scholars. 

This edition has 500 more pages than the English, and 100 more 
illustrations ; more than a thousand errors of reference in the Eng- 
lish edition are corrected in this, and an Index of Scripture Illus- 
trated is added. 

No similar work in our own or in any other language is for a mo- 
ment to be compared with it. — Quarterly Review (London). 

Newman Smyth, D. D. 

Social Problems. Sermons to Workingmen. 8vo, paper 
covers, 20 cents. 

Robert South, D. D. 

Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions. With 
a Memoir of the author. 5 vols. 8vo, $15.00. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
Religious Poems. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50. 

Joseph P. Thompson, D. D. 

American Comments on European Questions, Inter- 
national and Religious. 8vo, $3.00. 

Henry Thornton. 
Family Prayers, and Prayers on the Ten Command- 



12 Religious Publications. 

ments, with a Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, etc. 

By Henry Thornton. Edited by the late Bishop Eastburn, of 

Massachusetts. 1 6 mo, $1 .50. 

Probably no published volume of family prayers has ever been the 
vehicle of so much heart-felt devotion as these. They are what 
prayers should be — fervent, and yet perfectly simple. — Christian 
Witness. 

Professor C. P. Tiele. 

History of the Egyptian Religion. Translated from 
the Dutch, with the cooperation of the author, by James Ballin- 
gal. 8vo, gilt top, S3. 00. 

Henry Vaughan. 

See Herbert. 

Jones Very. 

Poems. With a Memoir by William P. Andrews. 

lomo, gilt top, $1.50. 

Poems unique in their quality among American poetry, alike for 
their spiritual intensity and their absolute sincerity. — Charles 
Eliot Norton. 

E. M. Wherry. 

A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran : Com- 
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tional Notes and Emendations. Together with a complete Index 
to the Text, Preliminary Discourse and Notes. 3 vols. 8vo, gilt 
top, each $4.50. 

John G. Whittier. 

Text and Verse. Selections from the Bible and from 
the Writings of John G. Whittier, chosen by Gertrude W. Cart- 
land. 32mo, 75 cents. 

John Woolman. 

The Journal of John Woolman. With an Introduc- 
tion by John G. Whittier. 16mo, $1.50. 

A perfect gem. His is a beautiful soul. An illiterate tailor, he 
writes in a style of the most exquisite purity and grace. His moral 
qualities are transferred to his writings. His religion is love. .His 
Christianity is most inviting : it is fascinating. — H. Crabb Robin- 
son, in his Diary. 

N. B. A Catalogue of all the publications of Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co., containing portraits of many distinguished authors, and a full Cat- 
alogue of their Religious Books, with critical notices and, full particulars 
in regard to them, will be sent to any address on application. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston, Mass. 

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